March 2012 Alberta Economic Fundamentals

[Ally]

As pipelines stall, railways keep oil flowing




On any given week, three to seven CP Rail trains laden with crude oil from the North Dakota Bakken field whisk across North America, bypassing the pipeline bottlenecks in mid-continent that are depressing oil prices and unaffected by the noise in Washington, D.C., that is holding back the Keystone XL pipeline.




It`s a roaring business. In 2009, when Calgary-based Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. started dabbling in crude oil transportation, it moved 500 of its black barrel-shaped cars out of the basin. Last year, its oil trains carried 13,000 cars and soon CP could be moving 70,000 cars or more a year out of the North Dakota Bakken tight-oil field alone.





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[Ally]

B.C. is Alberta's most likely oilsands ally





Should B.C. undertake all the risk and bother of getting the oilsands bounty to market while Alberta scoops the billions in benefits?




The question arises as Premier Alison Redford steps up efforts to promote the oilsands as a national asset, yielding gains for the entire country.






That notion sparked a tiff earlier this week between Redford and Ontario's Dalton McGuinty, who complains the strong "petrodollar" resulting from a booming oilsands industry is hurting his province's manufacturing sector, making the goods produced more expensive and discouraging export markets.






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[Ally]

Alberta MLS sales activity to top Canada for the next two years




CALGARY ` Alberta MLS sales activity is forecast to show the biggest year-over-year gains in the country in the next two years, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.http://http://www.crea.ca/




In a report released Monday, CREA said MLS sales in the province would grow by 6.8 per cent this year to 57,400 and by another 1.7 per cent in 2013 to 58,400.




Across the country, CREA forecasts 0.3 per cent growth in 2012 to 458,800 transactions but a decline of 0.3 per cent in 2013 to 457,200 units.






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[Ally]

Tenants forcing secondary suites in Calgary to shut





CALGARY ` When Michel Selim immigrated to Canada from Syria 13 years ago, a basement suite was all he could afford.




He`s proud to have worked and saved enough to buy investment properties of his own, and rent out the basements to others that were in need of low-cost housing like he once was.




But in May, Selim got a development inspector`s report that flagged his Forest Lawn home as having an `illegal dwelling unit` ` one of tens of thousands of Calgary homes that run afoul of one of the few big-city zoning bylaws in Canada that prohibits secondary suites in many districts.






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[Ally]

Oilsands-feulled growth sees census recording double-digit growth in Calgary




CALGARY ` The signs Canada`s population was shifting west were evident long before Statistics Canada released its 2011 census, and most of them read: Help Wanted.




Almost one-third of Canada`s 33.5 million citizens now live west of Ontario as the result of the shift in population that has largely been driven by job opportunities in the natural resource sector, particularly the oil and gas industry.




With 10 million people, Western Canada has a bigger population than Quebec, the Maritimes, Newfoundland and Labrador combined.





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[Ally]

Leduc rental market runs higher than Edmonton




In the City of Leduc, rent for a two-bedroom apartment is on average $1,086 per month, according to the Fall 2011 Rental Market Report published by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).




The amount has increased from 2010 numbers, which saw the average rent for a two-bedroom unit listed as $1,040. Experts state the increase in rent prices could be a result of the community growing, but some Leduc residents believe there should be a cap on the rent prices they believe are climbing too high.




`I`m a single parent who doesn`t qualify for housing subsidy and I can`t afford the minimum $1,200 per month for rent, plus utilities. I`m lucky that I can live with family but I don`t know where others, who are in the same situation, can go if they don`t qualify for subsidy,` said resident Shawna Wheatley, who commented on the Leduc Rep`s Facebook page. Wheatley`s sentiment was shared by at least three others commenting the average monthly rent is too expensive for one household income.





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[Ally]

Canadian crude discount squeezes oil patch




Canadian crude has become the poor cousin of the oil world, as a confluence of transportation and market factors threaten oil patch profits for months, if not years, to come.




Amid an explosion in oil sands growth, surging Canadian energy output has combined with pipeline problems and rocketing U.S. production to create a supply glut that is severely depressing prices, and profits. Concerns are now rising that the export pipes that sustain Canada`s energy industry are rapidly filling up.





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[Ally]

As oilsands activity heats up, Alberta employers brace for soaring costs, worker shortages





EDMONTON - Three years after global energy prices tanked, Alberta`s oilsands are booming once again.




But industry players say they`re already bracing for what they fear lies ahead: chronic labour shortages and soaring cost pressures, two factors that caused so much havoc during the last boom.




As 2012 began, the number of workers employed in the province was already five per cent above its pre-recession high, the Conference Board of Canada says, handily outstripping the national growth rate.






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[Ally]

Immigrants will fuel growth until 2015




Only a few years after Canadians were warned of a mass exodus of educated workers to the United States and countries farther afield, a "reverse brain drain" is starting to hit Western Canada in particular.




Amid soaring unemployment rates elsewhere in the wake of a global recession, Alberta faces labour shortages pegged at 77,000 in 2019 by Ernst & Young and 114,278 in 2021 by the government of Alberta. The result is three avenues of incoming workers - from overseas, the U.S., and the eastern provinces.




When immigrants first arrive in Canada, they settle where family and friends live, mostly in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. But once they get their bearings, they assess job prospects, mostly in Alberta.





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[Ally]

Bedbugs: A growing problem in Edmonton Area







Edmonton is booming with bed bugs. They arrived almost a decade ago and getting rid of the pests will not be easy.






Through an an access to information request filed by globalnews.ca, we have set up an interactive map below to let you see where the most complaints have been made.




Just 5 years after arriving in the city, reports north of downtown were the worst in all of Alberta.




James Baxter of Birch Fumigators uses a bug-sniffing dog named Tigger to get to the problem.






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[Ally]

CNRL sees crude price rebounding




The dramatic fall in the value of Canadian oil has prompted a critical question for companies that stand to lose substantial revenues from their now-cheap products: how long will the pain last?




It`s a question with serious consequences, given the 1.5 million barrels per day of Canadian heavy crude that, on Thursday, were selling $33.50 (U.S.) a barrel below the continent`s benchmark prices, according to Net Energy Inc., the Calgary firm that tracks trading activity.





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[Ally]

Local housing surge in February




Housing starts were up 22 per cent in the Edmonton census metropolitan area in February, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Thursday.




The federal agency said new-home construction increased last month to 597 units from 489 starts in February 2011. Housing starts also in-creased for the year to date to 1,175, compared with 852 during the first two months of 2011.




"There's a number of economic fundamentals that are supporting the housing market," said CMHC senior market analyst Richard Cho.





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[Ally]

Keystone faces defeat in U.S. senate





WASHINGTON ` The U.S. Senate could vote as early as Thursday on a plan to take quick action on the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline, a bid that will likely be defeated by Democrats but that gives its Republican supporters an opening to criticize President Barack Obama's energy policies.







Obama put the $7 billion project on hold pending further environmental review. Republicans argue the pipeline, which would ship oil from Canada and northern U.S. states to Texas, would create jobs and improve energy security at a time of surging gasoline prices.






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[Ally]

Edmonton's little bank that could




EDMONTON - Larry Pollock`s Excellent Adventure isn`t over just yet, but at 64, he`s getting ready to write the final chapter.




After 22 years as CEO of Edmonton-based Canadian Western Bank, Pollock will soon call it a career. At a downtown hotel today, he will preside over CWB`s annual general meeting of shareholders for the last time.




A year from now, a new boss will be calling the shots at Canada`s eighth-largest bank (the betting is on CWB`s current chief operating officer, Chris Fowler), while Pollock edges gradually into retirement.





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[Ally]

Alberta year-over-year employment growth highest in Canada





CALGARY ` Although employment levels in Alberta dipped in February from the previous month, on a year-over-year basis the province had the highest growth rate in the country.




Statistics Canada reported Friday that over the past 12 months employment in Alberta was up by 2.8 per cent or by 58,400 jobs.




However, it fell by 7,200 jobs or by 0.3 per cent compared with January.




The province`s unemployment rate on a monthly basis also rose from 4.9 per cent to 5.0 per cent.






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[Ally]

Alison Redford's energy message has big impact




NEW YORK - When Premier Alison Redford addressed a group of energy investors attending FirstEnergy Capital Corp.http://http://www.firstenergy.com/index2.php's annual conference here on Thursday, she so impressed one delegate that he asked if she'd consider being Mitt Romney's running mate.




Redford declined the unofficial offer to join the Republican ticket, of course, but it was one more indication of the effect both her message and presence continue to have - not just within Alberta but well beyond the province.






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[Ally]

Shire International investors want jail time rather than fine for promoter





CALGARY ` Two women who launched a $75-million class-action lawsuit over tens of millions of dollars allegedly lost in real estate deals promoted by Calgarian Jeanette Cleone Couch say a fine issued by the Alberta Securities Commission this week, among the regulator`s largest, provides cold comfort.




The investors who took Couch and her firms to court in 2009 want jail time.






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[Ally]

Tight oil expected to drive U.S. energy independence




EDMONTON - Once the world`s largest oil buyer, the U.S. could be an energy exporter by 2030 thanks to the soaring increase in tight oil and gas production, according to new estimates from a global consulting firm.




For Alberta, which currently ships almost all its oil and gas exports to the U.S., that prospect could usher in a far different marketplace than exists today.





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[Ally]

The American oil boom and its impact on Canada




Ironically, while many are focussing on the negative impact of high gasoline prices on the U.S. economy, oil production in the U.S. is surging, providing the largest stimulus to growth and job creation since the recession began in 2007. The fastest growing states are those with the highest exposure to energy, as exploration and drilling activity is fuelling a surge in growth. This new energy boom is the result of technological developments that have made the release of oil from shale rock not only feasible, but very profitable at oil prices around $100 or more a barrel.




Shale gas has been big energy news for several years as hydraulic fracturing has unlocked huge reserves of natural gas believed to be unreachable as recently as five years ago. This surge in natural gas supply is the primary reason for the plunge in gas prices.







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[Ally]

Feds warned of possible legal problems for Northern Gateway pipeline





OTTAWA ` Senior bureaucrats from multiple federal departments have been warned that the review process for a proposed pipeline linking Alberta's oilsands to the northwest coast of British Columbia could be overturned by the courts because of "unreasonable" consultation with aboriginal communities, newly released internal records reveal.







The warnings, delivered by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, noted that the federal government faces "adverse legal consequences" if it fails to offer adequate funding to help First Nations communities fully participate in consultations with the necessary resources to review evidence, material and proposals made by Alberta-based Enbridge regarding the Northern Gateway Pipeline project.






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