Alberta’s Been on a Wild Ride…
Filed Under Oil Sands, Real Estate General, Special Reports · Tagged: alberta slow down, encana, petrocan, suncor
If you haven’t noticed, Alberta’s real estate market and job market has been lately on a wild ride. Todd Hirsch, senior economist for ATB Financial was quoted in The Calgary Sun saying
“there are no ‘dire signals’ Alberta’s economy is in danger of running out of gas, or crashing. The speed of growth might be slower, but the signs point to more sustainable growth in 2008. It’s been a wild ride for the past few years, but a chance to take a breath – and catch up with runaway growth – should not necessarily be considered a bad thing”
He also compared “the ride we’ve been enjoying to a high speed cruise down the autobahn. When you have become accustomed to moving at 130 km/h, a deceleration to 80 km/h is very noticeable”
“Canadian energy giants such as EnCana, PetroCan and Husky plan to expand their oilsands operations and big international oil companies are manoeuvring to increase their stake. That’s not surprising when you consider the area is believed to contain some 175-billion barrels of oil, second only to Saudi Arabia’s reserves”
It appears that the Alberta market isn’t going to crash, but is rather taking a well deserved breath. The growth and increase can’t continue on like it has… that’s unsustainable. Just last week, Suncor sets to expand another $21 Billion just a day after it said that it would pay higher royalties to the Alberta government. I think we might still have a ways to go…
Jared Chamberlain
jared@tcgroup.ca
www.ChamberlainGroup.ca
