North West Redwater partnership celebrates breaking ground on Phase 1 on Sturgeon Refinery
CALGARY, Sept. 20, 2013 /CNW/ ` North West Redwater Partnership (NWR), a partnership between North West Upgrading Inc. (NWU) and Canadian Natural Upgrading Limited (CNUL), a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources Limited (Canadian Natural), today celebrated the recent ground-breaking of the Sturgeon Refinery, located in the Alberta Industrial Heartland. The event took place at the future site of the refinery, and included speeches from the Honourable Alison Redford, Premier of Alberta; Ian MacGregor, Chairman of NWU and Doug Bertsch, VP Regulatory and Stakeholder Affairs, NWR.
`This refinery, the first to be built in Canada in almost 30 years, is further proof of the can-do attitude that Albertans embody,` said Premier Alison Redford. `By supplying a reliable source of bitumen from the Bitumen-Royalty-In-Kind program, our government is working with industry to grow the value-added sector as part of our Building Alberta Plan.`
New surge in oil-by-rail boom as pipeline uncertainty takes hold
BRUDERHEIM, Alta. ` Every day up to 65 truckloads of diluted bitumen rumble into the Canexus Corp. terminal an hour`s drive from Edmonton.
With the efficiency of a modern distribution warehouse, the goopy cargo is sucked into storage tanks and then transferred to waiting railcars. The truck-to-train operation handled just 14,500 barrels per day in the second-quarter, but those volumes are poised to increase dramatically.
Calgary and Edmonton will be Canada's economic leaders in the near future
CALGARY ` Calgary and Edmonton will be the country`s economic leaders in the next few years, according to the Conference Board of Canada.
In releasing its metropolitan outlook on Friday, the board said both Alberta cities will average annual economic growth of 3.1 per cent during 2014-2017.
Residential rentals are often a gateway for novice real estate investors - and, for many it becomes a lifetime opportunity. The right property will provide long-term positive cash flow and, often, an exit strategy smoothed by a substantial increase in equity.
In Western Canada the opportunities for individual investors have seldom been better than they are right now, according to those close to the ground. Rental vacancies are low in many promising small centres, the western provinces are attracting a flood of young workers and immigrants and, despite a modest increase this year, mortgage rates remain near historic lows.
Global fabricator Yanda to open first facility outside of China in Fort Saskatchewan
FORT SASKATCHEWAN ` They don`t have any orders yet, but thanks to relationships with some of the world`s biggest energy and chemical companies, Yanda expects its first plant outside China to be humming along soon.
Yanda Canada officials said during a sod-turning ceremony on Monday that the company`s new module yard and fabrication facility in Fort Saskatchewan will be open next year and will feature a 50,000 square-foot shop with overhead cranes and 39 outdoor module-building bays.
Landlord and tenant rights: what to do in a rental nightmare
TORONTO ` An Alberta renter who declared the landlord`s property an embassy, changed the locks and charged for renovations is an extreme example of when tenancy goes awry, but a rental rights advocate says he encounters scores of similar problems each month.
`The fact tenants change locks, don`t pay rent, do damage`those are regular, common occurrences`they are not unusual,` said Calgary Residential Rental Association Executive Director Gerry Baxter.
Calgary weathered June's devastating flood with its community spirit and quality of life largely intact, according to a broad survey of citizens released Tuesday.
The Calgary Foundation's seventh annual Vital Signs survey gave the city an overall B+ grade - the same as 2012 - and registered improvements in several of the 15 areas it examined.
Affordability elusive in tight Calgary rental market
When Gisele Knorr`s landlord tripled her rent, she could be forgiven for thinking she`d experienced the worst of Calgary`s housing market.
She elected to move rather than accept the rent hike ` $400 a month to $1,200 ` but was forced to leave her latest apartment when the landlord sold the property.
By saying Canada won't take no for an answer from the United States on the Keystone XL pipeline, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has effectively invoked the famous line from Apollo XIII - "Failure is not an option."
And while project supporters might be pleased by Harper's statement, the truth is Canada remains the flea on the back of an elephant.
EDMONTON - Sasauna Campbell, a mother of two young kids who moved to Edmonton to start a job, just spent a chilly fall night sleeping in her car.
She may have to do it again, because she can`t find a place to live for herself and her children, aged one and three, who are back home in Drumheller with a family friend.
Could a property-tax break revive mature neighbourhoods in Edmonton?
EDMONTON - It`s easy to forget just how bleak the Edmonton economy looked in the 1990s, before Alberta`s oilsands boom really took off.
Local jobless rates were high, house prices were in a major funk, Edmonton`s population was shrinking, and more pigeons than people called the city`s dusty, desolate downtown core home.
RED DEER, Alta. - This year has been as flat as the Prairies for the energy drilling industry in Western Canada.
Mark Scholz (SHOLTZ), president of the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors, says rig utilization has been about 41 per cent so far this year.
CALGARY ` Calgary`s industrial market has remained healthy during the third quarter of this year with just over one million square feet of positive absorption, according to a new report by Colliers International.
The jump in absorption is up from the second quarter which had 671,241 square feet of positive absorption.
Eleven aboriginal workers gather in a circle as Trevor Davies, a non-aboriginal manager at the Dehchen sawmill, located on the LeGoff reserve, stands on a large patch of cracked earth. `We`ve got some elders here to help us pray and help us be successful,` Davies says, breaking the silence. He and the others have assembled this June morning to break ground on a $1-million wood-post production plant, which will create an expected 15 to 20 jobs. Two elders come forward ` a man holding a deer-skin drum and a woman clutching tobacco. They speak in Dene, then in English. `I know that one day the government won`t look after our children,` says Elise Charland, the female elder, `so we have to look after our own children.` Then, with unfortunate timing, two CF-18 fighter jets from Wing 4 Cold Lake thunder past low in the sky.
CALGARY ` The resale housing market outside of Calgary is booming these days.
The Calgary Real Estate Board reported Tuesday that Airdrie, Cochrane and Okotoks all recorded the highest third-quarter sales activity on record, mostly as a result of gains in the single-family homes sector.
Albertans think family first when buying a home: Survey
CALGARY - When it comes to homebuying preferences, Alberta is a family-focused province, according to a survey released Tuesday by Century 21 Canada and Rona.
The National Home Buyer Preferences Survey, conducted by Pollara Strategic Insights, said Alberta is the most likely, of all regions, to rank living in a family-oriented community as the number one community desire as 19 per cent of Albertans rank this as their top priority for community selection.
Lack of inventory fuelling price growth in Calgary
CALGARY ` A continued lack of inventory is fuelling house price growth in Calgary.
The Royal LePage House Price Survey, released Thursday, shows strong year-over-year price increase in all housing types in the city as competition for homes is being driven by a strong economy and the influx of professionals.
CALGARY ` Calgary`s commercial real estate investment market once again witnessed significant investment activity in the first half of 2013.
A report released Wednesday by Avison Young said total dollar volume increased by four per cent compared with first-half 2012 levels, amounting to almost $2.2 billion. The key driver was land sales, which totalled $902 million, an increase of 249 per cent.