business and industrial 2012

Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune • Tuesday, February 21, 2012 B7

780-532-1110 • dailyheraldtribune.com

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

2012

KIRSTEN GORUKHerald-Tribune staff

A look ahead to retail and tourism for the coming year looks promising, with the predict ion t hat people in Alberta are travelling in their own province and even bet-ter, spending some of that time and money in Grande Prairie.

“It was actually one of the best years the mall has ever

had in terms of sales per-square-foot,” sa id L ionel F r e y, m a r-keting direc-tor for Prai-rie Mall.

“We’re a l r e a d y u p f r o m l a s t

yea r ’s nu mber s compa r-ing January and February of last year. Based on that, 2012 looks very promising as well.”

Frey attributes last year’s success and his optimistic outlook for 2012 to a number of factors.

“I think consumers are a lit-tle more confident than they have been; that’s definitely a major contributor. I think the area itself has been busier as well, just in terms of other sectors such as the oil and gas sector. It all has an impact on the retail sector,” he said.

In the last year the mall ren-ovated Coles and added sev-eral new businesses includ-ing David’s Tea, Jugo Juice and Aéropostale. Recently it was announced that in 2013 a $10 million project will con-vert the current Zellers into a

Target. “We’re

always developing the mall with n e w m e r -chants mov-ing in; t hat w i l l n e v e r c h a n g e . I think bring-ing in more diverse stores and offering a variety of different things that consumers haven’t seen before is t he k ind of pat h we’re on,” Frey said.

T he ma l l isn’t t he on ly establishment celebrating a good year of retail. Helen Rice, executive director of the DownTown Association, said that 2011 went extremely well for businesses.

“We of course don’t gather

statistics the way you do in a mall, it’s more just conversa-tion, but for any of the infor-mation I’ve got sales were up in the neighbourhood of 10 to 11%,” she said.

Rice added that part of that increase is tied to the strong marketing plans each busi-ness uses.

“The majority of the busi-nesses are owner operated, there’s that enthusiasm that comes t h roug h. It t ra ns-lates to customer service and I think in today’s economy, that’s what people are looking for: Quality and value.”

With the decision to build a new hotel on the old York Hotel’s site at 101 Street and 101 Avenue, businesses are excited for what it will mean

for the future. “You put a $30 million facil-

ity in there and you’ll revital-ize the whole area. I know that there are several downtown businesses already thinking and planning ahead into how they can tie in and spiff their premises up. It’s breathes a whole lot of enthusiasm into downtown,” Rice said.

Looking toward the coming

tourist season, the association plans to continue working closely with the Grande Prai-rie Regional Tourism Asso-ciation. This year executive director Ainsley Lamontagne explained that the focus is on provincial travellers.

“We’re focusing our atten-tion more instead of trying to hit a bit of everyone,” she said.

“Even though the overall numbers have stayed around the same, over the last year we’ve seen a really large rise in A lbertan travel lers. So that’s something we’ve been working towards this year; we’ve been marketing specif-ically towards Alberta.”

Continued on B9

B8 Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune • Tuesday, February 21, 2012

business and industrial visions

FREyGreat year

RICEDowntown up

DHT FIlE pHOTO

New retailers and an increased sense of optimism on the part of consumers saw numbers rise at the Prairie Mall this year.

Retail sector on the riseBoth Prairie Mall and downtown businesses recording increased sales in the last year

“It breathes a whole lot of enthusiasm into

downtown.”Helen Rice


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Continued from ??While Travel Alberta looks

to the U.S. and other prov-inces, Lamontagne will travel to expos in Edmonton, Cal-gary and a few in the North-west Territories.

“ T h e i r p r o g r a m m i n g for marketing this year is: Remember to breathe. So they’re really looking at the experiences and feelings that they evoke and we’re hop-ing to start a program for our website that works on the same principal,” she said.

Pa r t o f a n e w st rate g y

includes host-i n g w e e k l y “ m e a t a n d g re e t ” b a r-becues dur-ing the nine peak weeks in the season. Residents and visitors can come and learn about a

new agricultural perspective each week from some who works locally.

As a newcomer to her posi-tion, Lamontagne is open

to exploring new options to keep this vital industry alive and well.

“It’s incredibly important. It’s really obvious to look around to see the tourist who sticks out and is different, but every time a visitor comes, whether it’s friends or family coming to see you, they’re still from out of town and put their money into our local econ-omy.”

[email protected]

Twitter:@DHTKirsten

LamontagneExploring options

Great experiences a focus for tourism sector this year

optimism in the oilpatch

Dan ILIKaHerald-Tribune staff

The oil and gas industry seems to be on the upswing despite del icate c i rc u m-stances as the winter season draws to a close.

The Petroleum Ser vices Association of Canada (PSAC) reduced its forecast number of oi l wells dri l led across the nation and Alberta, with low natural gas prices and labour shortages as the main culprits a lt hough projec-tions remain higher than last year’s final numbers.

“We’re busy,” said PSAC president a nd CEO Ma rk Salkeld of Calgary. “It’s very optimistic out there.”

C om i n g i nto t he y e a r, PSAC forecast just more than 15,000 wells to be dri l led across Canada, but decreased that number late last month by 11%, or 1,700 wells, bring-ing the projected number to 13,350.

PSAC still anticipates an increase of 4% over 2011 drill-ing numbers of 12,917 wells, and 2% grow th in Alberta with 8,267 wells expected to be drilled.

The updated forecast is based part ly on low pric-ing across the industry, with

natural gas prices hovering around $3.25/mcf and crude oil prices of about $90/bar-rel.

High reserves and low win-ter consumption have both cont r ibuted to maintain-ing low prices, Salkeld said, along w ith improved pro-duction that makes the most of the materials extracted.

“There’s nothing super-exciting peeking its head out to indicate that gas prices are going to turn around in the very near future,” he said.

The milder than normal temperat ures t his w inter are also causing some fear, according to Salkeld, but optimism still reigns.

“Now there are a little bit of nervous shakes about the brea k up a nd w hat t hat ’s going to do to us and we’re trying to rub off the crystal ball going into spring and summer. But all in all it’s a nice oilpatch.”

LABOUR BOTTLENECKThe skilled labour shortage

projected by PSAC and other industry experts has ham-pered t he indust r y some, with Salkeld describing the situation as a bottleneck.

“We saw the frustrations

with human resources and tr ying to track labour and retain labour and keeping people from jumping (ship),” he said of the growing labour concerns.

According to Salkeld, PSAC is working with the federal and provincial governments to combat such shortages, particularly in the west.

Salkeld said the provin-cial and federal governments need to develop an initiative to encourage Canadians to move west and make it easier for skilled foreign workers to work in the industry.

“They’re hesitant with the immigration side of things,” he said.

According to Salkeld, he has witnessed firsthand the impact an arduous process is having on both employers and prospective employees looking to come from abroad and work in Canada’s oil and gas sector.

“I’ve got member compa-nies that need professionals like engineers and we don’t have any,” he said.

Salkeld said it can take member companies as long as 10 years to train a skilled, mu lt i faceted eng ineer to work in the industry.

Continued on B10

Drilling expected to rise 4% over last year

DHt fILe pHoto

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Continued from B9“We’ve got g uys apply-

ing to work in Canada from Ireland,” he said. “There’s valve engineers over there that would come and work in our (industry but) it will take them a year to work through the Canadian process to get in here.”

Some of t hose work i ng outside raw material collec-tion and production shared Salkeld’s sentiments.

“I think we’re just on sort of the edge of a huge skilled labour shortage in Alberta,” said Neil Shelly of Fort Sas-katchewan, executive direc-tor of the Industrial Heart-land Association.

Coming of f an oi lsands conference in Calgary, Shel-ley – whose orga nizat ion

works in the value-added side of the industry – said that shortage was the number-one topic.

“I think there’s $130-bil-lion in investment in the oil-sands planned over the next eight years,” he said. “Do we actually have the people to (work them)?”

In spite of what seem to be negative circumstances, Salkeld and Shelly said all aspects of production seem to be r u n n i ng f u l l stea m ahead.

“Having said all that, it’s a very optimistic, exciting oilpatch right now,” Salkeld said. “It’s just frustratingly busy.”

[email protected]

Twitter:@DHTDan

Finding skilled labour may

become an issue

DHT File pHoTo

There is a lot of optimism in the oilpatch these days.

B10 Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune • Tuesday, February 21, 2012AD-RA

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DAN ILIKAHerald-Tribune staff

The oil and gas outlook may not be back to boom-like levels of a decade ago, but business is positive in the Peace Country, according to experts.

Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors (CAODC) president Mark Scholz of Calgary said wells across the Peace were sitting around 89% utilization for the week of Feb. 13.

“Overall activity is quite strong in that area,” he said. “There’s no question that we’re seeing some good activ-ity there.”

These numbers don’t show much variance from 2011, according to Scholz, though things slowed down slightly in early January.

“We did see a bit of a strug-gle at the beginning of Janu-ary because of the (unseason-ably) warmer temperatures,” he said. “They did have a lit-tle bit of an impact with over-all drilling activity because part of the struggle with some of the locations we have to

access in northern Alberta need to be quite cold and the ground to be frozen.”

Still, activity has rebounded, Scholz said, and look positive moving ahead.

“Moving forward and as of today activity is very strong throughout the Peace as well as the rest of the province,” he said.

Grande Prairie’s Alpine Pumpjack Services opera-tions manager Scott Nellis said there’s no signs of a slow-down, as pumpjack installs are booked through March.

“Business has been very busy,” he said. “I think it’s

going to stay steady all year.”Nellis said Alpine was busy

through 2011 but looks to be even busier this year.

“Right now we’re (install-ing) two a day, five days a week,” he said of the number of pumpjack installs Alpine crews are doing in the area. “We’re booked probably three weeks in advance right now.”

Jarvis Dawson, president of local oilfield hauling firm, JDA, said the winter season has been busy but expressed some concern of a slump in 2012 in the region’s natural gas industry.

“It’s been flat out but the short-term doesn’t looked very good,” he said. “It’ll prob-ably slow down a little bit.”

Dawson said liquid-rich gas production looks positive but dry gas wells look to be slow-ing down, possibly through the summer months.

“We expect to be busy just not as busy,” he said. “I expect that by fall natural gas might not be fully recovered but it will be busy again.”

[email protected]:#DHTDan

Cash Crop

DHT FILe pHoTo

Producers in the Peace Country had a good year, particularly in canola, in 2011. Many are watching the weather this spring, hopeful for just the right amount of moisture to get things growing.

“Moving forward and as of today

activity is very strong throughout the Peace as well as the rest of

the province.”Mark Scholz

Local oilfield service companies finding

steady increase


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B12 Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune • Tuesday, February 21, 2012B12 Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune • Tuesday, February 21, 2012


AARON HINKSHerald-Tribune staff

The third-quarter results from the Alberta Forest Prod-ucts Association took a cut in production and value com-pared to last year’s results.

A c c o r d i n g t o f i g u r e s released by AFPA, lumber companies produced 720 million board feet (mmfbm) between July and Septem-ber 2011 with a value of $172.9 million. Total produc-tion volumes were down 12.1 mmfbm, or 1.7%, from 2010 third-quarter results. Stronger prices led to a $3.3 million, or 1.9%, increase in values.

Panelboard has similar results.

AFPA member panelboard operators produced 273 mil-lion square feet of 7/16 inch equivalent in the 2011 third-quarter, valued at $67.5 mil-lion. Production was down 11.3 million square feet, or 4%, and value decreased $5

million, 6.9%, compared to the 2010 third-quarter.

“From the lumber and pan-elboard side, historically our strongest market is in the United States (and) they’re going through a tough time right now” said Bruce Mulli-gan, director of communica-tions for AFPA.

“There’s no doubt that a high U.S. dollar is another challenge that we do face,” he said. “We’re working to medi-ate those challenges. We have a number of initiatives both at the association level and the individual company level to make relationships stronger in Asia to diversify those mar-kets.”

AFPA strides to improve the efficiency of its members mills and increase environ-mental performance by using less water.

“Also to get more out of every piece of wood, whether that be bio energy or cutting it in the most strategic way,”

Mulligan said.Though the pulp and paper

production and value has slightly decreased, it’s the strongest of the three prod-ucts.

AFPA’s pulp and paper sector total production in the third-quarter of 2011 was 379,000 air dried met-ric tonnes (ADMT) valued at $308.2 million. Production was down 16,900 ADMT, 4.3%, from the 2010 third-quarter results and values declined $48 million, or 13.5%.

“It’s no secret that wood products remain challenged,” said Wayne Roznowsky, pub-lic affairs manager for Wey-erhaeuser Canada. “Pulp is a better picture. It’s been clear that pulp has been a pretty good business for the last cou-ple of years. I think there was a softening of prices towards the end of the year but pulp has been a pretty good story.”

Continued on B13

Forestry industry looking to new markets

Slump in the U.S. having an effect on Canada

DHT FIle pHOTO

The downturn in the lumber market in the U.S. has Canadian forestry companies looking to Asia to diversify.

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Continued from ??AFPA will work towards

preparing itself to take advan-tage of the economic oppor-tunities that a turn around is going to present, said Mulli-gan.

“Our industry is a very important economic driver in about 50 communities around the province,” Mulligan said. “It’s really important that we take steps now to ensure that it’s going to be healthy and strong for the future. We’re confident in doing that.”

GoinG GreenWeyerhaeuser is now clos-

ing in on the installation of its $70 million evaporator project.

It took 18 separate loads travelling more than 1,200 kilometres for the vessels to reach the Weyerhaeuser facil-ity, south of the city.

The equipment was man-ufactured in China and Thai-land. It was shipped to Van-couver, Wash., before it was barged to Lewiston, Idaho. The equipment then trav-elled by road from Lewis-ton to Grande Prairie. It took approximately four months for every vessel to reach Wey-erhaeuser.

The new investment will

free up to 100,000 pounds of steam per hour.

This will reduce more than 140,000 tones of CO2 from the atmosphere.

Ten tonnes of CO2 is the equivalent to the emission of one truck, meaning the CO2 reduction is the equivalent of taking 14,000 trucks off the road.

The installation of the evap-orator was initially slated to be complete by March 2012.

T h e p r o j e c t h a s b e e n pushed back until the fall.

“A lot of it was just equip-ment, delivering the vessels pushed our schedule back,” said Roznowsky.

Last year Weyerhaeuser was awarded with the safest pulp mill in North America.

“It’s a whole year with-out a recorded injury for our employees and that’s great. We’re very proud of that,” Roznowsky said.

Canfor also celebrated a milestone this year.

After 25 years in operation, the iconic portal crane in the log yard along Wapiti Road was recently retired.

The crane, which cost $3.6 million in 1985, will be dis-mantled this year.

To subsidize the retire-ment of its crane, Canfor has switched to a cut-to-length program. Trees in the bush are cut into 16 or 20-foot lengths before being hauled to the Canfor mill. The cuts will eliminate the need for the crane and will result in safer transportation on Alberta’s roads.

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Environment, safety important focus locally

DHT File PHoTo

Weyerhaeuser’s new evaporator project is expected to come online sometime this fall.

DHT File PHoTo

With the retirement of Canfor’s large portal crane, the company has moved to cutting shorter logs in the field.


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