{"id":42739,"date":"2019-01-14T10:02:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T15:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42739"},"modified":"2019-01-14T10:02:20","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T15:02:20","slug":"theres-no-sugarcoating-canadas-oil-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=42739","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s No Sugarcoating Canada\u2019s Oil Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s No Sugarcoating Canada\u2019s Oil Crisis<\/a><\/h3>\n
\"Cenovus<\/picture><\/div>\n
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Has financial disaster been averted in Canada\u2019s oil and gas industry?<\/p>\n

\u2018Disaster\u2019 is all relative. Let\u2019s just say 2019 is going to be a difficult year following a tough set of recent circumstances.<\/p>\n

One thing we know is that the recent episode of bargain-basement commodity prices\u2014triggered by a regional glut of oil and gas looking for a pipeline to call home, combined with low international oil prices\u2014has wounded this year\u2019s outlook for conventional oilfield activity. That\u2019s the segment of the business, outside the oil sands, where two-thirds of the industry\u2019s spending typically occurs.<\/p>\n

Beyond the tight orbit of Fort McMurray\u2019s oil sands, in the broader oil and gas fields of BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, the overt indicator of sectoral health is drilling activity. Like counting cars on a freeway, you know the economy is bad if there are only a few commuters on the road.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s looking pretty bad for the first quarter. We\u2019re entering the peak \u2018rush hour\u2019 of the winter drilling season with only 180 bits turning on active rigs. The level of activity is feeling a lot like the depths of 2016, the lowest New Year\u2019s entry in decades (see Figure 1).<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

For comparison, last year at this time the rig count was climbing toward a more stable February peak of 348. But stability is hardly in the energy dictionary right now. Volatile discounts, weak international prices, illiquid equity markets and a never-ending pipeline drama has spooked those with money and hollowed those without. It\u2019s pretty simple really: No confidence plus no money equals no drilling. That\u2019s what was happening late last year.<\/p>\n

Having said that, the very real potential for fiscal disaster was averted. To clear the late \u201918 production glut, the government of Alberta stepped into the market with a mandatory oil curtailment (8.7 percent across the board).<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s No Sugarcoating Canada\u2019s Oil Crisis Has financial disaster been averted in Canada\u2019s oil and gas industry? \u2018Disaster\u2019 is all relative. Let\u2019s just say 2019 is going to be a difficult year following a tough set of recent circumstances. One thing we know is that the recent episode of bargain-basement commodity prices\u2014triggered by a regional […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1082,103,12727,1729,23083,595,3540,16958],"class_list":["post-42739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","tag-alberta","tag-canada","tag-canadian-oil","tag-oil-and-gas-industry","tag-oil-price-com","tag-oil-production","tag-oilsands","tag-peter-tertzakian"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42740,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42739\/revisions\/42740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}