No way around labour shortage

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Oilpatch companies already struggling to meet their labour needs have received an ominous warning from the Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada: they ain’t seen nothing yet.

The council is projecting that the domestic petroleum industry could require as many as 130,000 additional workers by 2020, including 102,000 in Alberta. Even under its most pessimistic of forecasts — with low oil and gas prices and very little capital investment — the council anticipates that another 39,000 workers will be needed, with 33,000 of these Alberta-based.
These conclusions are contained in a Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada report entitled The Decade Ahead: Labour Market Projections and Analysis for Canada’s Oil and Gas Industry to 2020.
“There’s no way around it, Canada’s petroleum industry will struggle to find the workers it needs over the next 10 years,” said Cheryl Knight, the council’s executive director and CEO, in a release.
“Not only will we need to replace thousands of our most skilled and experienced workers, but (we’ll need to) prepare for future growth as well.”
Workers leaving the industry will account for much of the job growth, said the report, with age-related attrition expected to open up 45,800 to 54,000 positions.
Bruce Thiessen, CEO of High Arctic Energy Services Inc., told the Advocate last month that manpower was his Red Deer-based company’s biggest challenge.
“We’ve got equipment sitting at the fence right now that I could have utilized throughout this year, but just couldn’t get to because of the people situation.”
And earlier this year, Essential Energy Services Ltd. CEO Garnet Amundson said labour constraints were holding his company to an equipment utilization rate of about 65 per cent.
“Our industry, with the types of services we provide, should be able to operate up to about an 85 per cent utilization. So there’s about a 20 per cent utilization gap that we would like to fill, but can’t find enough good people.”
Charles Strachey, regional communications manager for Alberta Employment and Immigration, said energy companies are becoming more aggressive in their hunt for workers. One third of the employers booked for an April 6 job fair at his department’s Red Deer office are from that sector.
The Petroleum Human Resources Council of Canada report said that approximately 171,000 people worked in the petroleum sector in 2009. Services accounted for more than 80,000 of these, with exploration and production employing 66,000, and the oilsands another 12,000. Workers in the pipeline and offshore sectors made up the balance.
The council’s report anticipates that available jobs in the services sector will increase by between 18,100 and 72,000 by 2020, with exploration and production needs jumping between 7,400 and 36,700, and oilsands positions between 9,000 and 14,900.
The need will be greatest in Alberta, said the report, which ironically could deter prospective workers from moving here.
“History has shown that significant growth in industry activity and resulting labour demand drives up inflation and the cost of living, which in turn can be a deterrent to attracting workers.”
Workers of all types will be needed, said the report, but some vocations will be in greater demand than others. These include oil and gas drilling and services field workers and supervisors; heavy-duty equipment mechanics, industrial electricians, instrumentation technicians and millwrights and machinists; engineers; steam-ticketed operators; geologists and geophysicists; production accountants; drilling co-ordinators and production managers; and landmen and purchasing agents.
The report recommends a number of measures be minimize the impact of the labour crunch. These include the industry communicating its labour needs to government and post-secondary and training institutions; sourcing workers from diverse labour pools; increasing the emphasis on employee retention and training; seeking innovation and technological advancement; and collaborating within the industry.
“Labour supply to ensure sustainable expansion of Canada’s petroleum industry will take diversification, development and collaboration.”
hrichards@reddeeradvocate.com

 

 

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Drilling-worker shortage in Canada’s booming oil industry

Image via WikipediaAmid all the stories we’re seeing about unemployed workers’ unsuccessful job searches, it’s a welcome change to see one about an industry where workers are being recruited: Canada’s oil-drilling companies say they’re desperately short of workers.  (Clarification: These are at the traditional oil wells, not at the tar sands in Alberta).
Joe Bruce, CEO of Nabors Canada, one of the largest drilling companies in the country, told the Toronto Globe and Mail, “We could probably work somewhere in the region of 63 or 64 of our drilling rigs this winter. We don’t believe we can crew any more than maybe 55 or 56.”
The pay’s not bad, either: Hourly rates for drill workers in Canada range from $24 an hour for a lease hand to $40.20 for a driller. But rig work typically lasts only for a few months at a time, and even the weekly two-on, one-off shifts are often interrupted by changes in plan that come from, for example, companies cancelling wells.
Of course, the recent Globe and Mail story on oil- worker shortages reminds us,

“Convincing people to work outside in cold, remote locations has never been easy for drilling companies. But they say this year has been especially difficult, since drill workers who went without work in the past couple of years have now abandoned the industry – in part for construction jobs and in part to stay away from companies that now admit their salaries haven’t kept up.”

And fewer rigs in operation means fewer runs for the stars of cable’s “Ice Road Truckers” to deliver salty snacks to all those hungry oil-rig workers way up north.
Bruce says, “We’re doing everything we can to attract people,  but at the same time we’re not about to put people at risk by putting a whole bunch of green hands on a rig that don’t know what they’re doing.”
The drilling companies in Canada are also reaching out to “under-represented” groups like women, immigrants, and first-nation workers.

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