Natural gas futures in New York fluctuated after rising to the highest price in almost four weeks on forecasts of hotter-than-normal weather that would boost demand for the fuel to produce electricity.
Gas gained as much as 5.3 percent and fell as much as 0.6 percent, as Commodity Weather Group LLC in Bethesda, Maryland, predicted above-normal temperatures in the southern and central U.S. from June 25 through June 29. The high in Dallas on June 25 may be 101 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius), 8 above average, according to AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania.
“The market is following the thermometer,” said Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago. “There’s no doubt that it’s a very hot start to the summer, and that’s turning out to be supportive for prices.”
Camarta personally oversaw construction of Shell's $6-billion Muskeg River Mine, a project challenged by persistent labour shortages and a series of explosions not long after it opened. The project's timeline also coincided with a surge in oil prices from $12 to $100 per barrel, which set off an economic boom harder and faster than anything northern Alberta had ever seen.
Camarta was at PetroCanada by the time the Great Recession of 2008 struck. "Hell on wheels," is how he described it. Oil sands investment shrank just as quickly as it had grown.
Now, after four years of shaky global recovery, it's set to hit record highs once again.
Alberta has the biggest population surge in the country, with a recording-breaking boom in both interprovincial migration and immigration.
A hot job market has become a magnet for workers from other provinces this year – namely Ontario, British Columbia and Newfoundland – while immigration to Alberta is at record levels.
It’s easy to see why. The province’s jobless rate ties with Saskatchewan for the lowest in the country, and employment has grown at more than three times the national average in the past year. Average weekly wages are the highest in the country. In the next decade, Alberta’s government figures the province could be short 114,000 workers amid blistering demand.
The provincial health superboard has hired hundreds of nurses, therapists and clinical staff in Calgary as part of an aggressive $50-million recruitment blitz that’s taken the medical authority across the country and abroad to staff the city’s new hospital.
Alberta Health Services has brought on 860 new staff members and is on track to hire the roughly 2,400 positions needed to operate the South Health Campus, said Brenda Huband, AHS senior vice-president for the Calgary zone.
CALGARY — Alberta and the Calgary region had the lowest rates of inflation in the country in May, according to Statistics Canada.
The federal agency reported Friday that consumer prices in Alberta rose 0.4 per cent in the 12 months to May while in the Calgary census metropolitan area they increased by 0.3 per cent.
Nationally, prices rose by 1.2 per cent
CALGARY — No one has to tell Andrew Corcoran about the challenges in today’s tightening labour market in Calgary.
He’s experiencing it first-hand.
Corcoran, franchise partner in Calgary for 1-888-WOW-1Day! Painting, has been busy since starting the company in the city at the beginning of March. It’s a sign that once again the economy is booming.
CALGARY - Outgoing U.S. consul general Laura Lochman spent much of her final Calgary speaking engagement talking up Alberta’s oil and gas industry and the role she believes it will play in ensuring American energy security.
Lochman, who completes a three-year stint as U.S. consul general for Alberta, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories on July 8, acknowledged in an address to the Calgary Chamber of Commerce on Thursday that the Canada-U.S. energy trade has experienced bumps in the road during her time in this country.
“The decision on a certain proposed pipeline was, let’s say, not quite what many of us — including myself — would have expected,” Lochman said.
CALGARY - Alberta's conventional and oilsands crude output is growing faster than expected and overall oil output will more than double by 2021, according to an annual report by the provincial regulator released Wednesday.
The cornucopia of crude, however, had some observers questioning how Alberta will get the bounty to market and what price it will fetch, given regulatory challenges faced by proposed pipelines.
CALGARY, AB - The last year Calgary and area new home builders started construction on more than 11,000 homes was 2008, when 11,438 foundations were poured, including a decades-high 7,051 multi-family homes.
The next year more than 11,000 homes will be started is 2012, accord- ing to the Calgary-area spring Housing Market Outlook (HMO) from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
CMHC expects builders to start 11,600 new homes this year, comprised of 5,700 single-family and 5,900 multi-family homes. Next year, look for 11,400 starts, including 5,900 singles and 5,500 multis.
CALGARY - Alberta has moved up in the world of best places to invest in oil and gas activities, to 21st place from 61st a year ago, according to the latest Fraser Institute report.
The province shot up in the ranking of 147 jurisdictions ... partially on the provincial government’s promise to streamline certain energy and environmental regulations, according to the conservative think tank’s Global Petroleum Survey 2012.
“Two years ago, Alberta ranked 60th in the world for oil and gas investment, the result of what the industry saw as an unexpected royalty grab by the provincial government,” said Gerry Angevine, Fraser Institute senior economist and co-author of the studay. “Today, investors say they are less concerned about regulatory uncertainty, the cost of regulatory compliance, and regulatory duplication and inconsistency.”
EDMONTON - They’re classic value traps: cheap stocks that keep getting cheaper, sucking in unwary investors.
The energy services sector is full of them. The long list of losers includes U.S. giants like Halliburton, Baker-Hughes and Weatherford, and homegrown players like Precision, Ensign or Trican.
Although a few Alberta firms — such as Mullen — resisted the steady declines over the past year, their shares are also starting to buckle.
The reasons are clear: with North America drowning in shale gas — and now, oil as well — and crude prices crumbling sharply, the outlook for services firms is growing dimmer by the day.