Price plunge brings hardship to Canada oil sands El-Dorado

Sky-high salaries once attracted thousands of workers to this small city in the heart of Canada's oil sands.

But after crude prices plunged, Fort McMurray is lamenting a brief golden age.

From June 2014 to January, the price of a barrel of oil shed half its value.

Several drilling projects were deemed no longer viable and put on hold. Some 20,000 oil sands workers were laid off.

On the outskirts of this small city, campsites that were once filled with an overflow of homeless workers are no longer jam-packed.

Sites used to rent for Can$1,500 (US$1,227) monthly, but many packed up their trailers or wooden shacks and left after losing their job.

Left behind are a handful of oilmen and the unemployed drifters who scavenge for cans and bottles they can turn in for a cash deposit.
But not everyone sees the turnaround as a bad one. It has put an end to rampant real estate speculation, for example.

"Maybe I'll finally be able to afford an apartment in town," said Bob, a plumber. "Every cloud has a sliver lining."

Since the start of the fall in oil prices mid-2014, job layoffs have come in waves.

Each one drives another nail into the fortunes of local businesses that once relied on big-spending oil workers.

More and more rely on a local food bank, which has seen a 74-percent year-on-year increase in the number of people it feeds.

"We're seeing the results of layoffs: families abandoned, separations and the breakdown of the home," director Arianna Johnson said.

What they have is "not enough to cover their rent or their mortgage, as well as food for their family."
A stone's throw away down Fort McMurray's main street, the Centre of Hope homeless shelter is also brimming with guests.

"We're seeing a lot of new faces... a lot of young men coming in," said the shelter's executive director Stephen Bryant.

"They came here looking for work... the streets were paved with gold, but that's not the case," he said.

They had high hopes and big dreams, he said. Now, "they can't support themselves."

- Diversification needed -

Like the Klondike Gold Rush that saw 100,000 prospectors in the last years of the 19th century migrate to Canada's Yukon territory, northwest of Fort McMurray, oil riches have lured scores in search of El Dorado.

The influx doubled Fort McMurray's population to 80,000.

"Earning Can$150,000 to Can$200,000 per year is the norm here," said electrician Chris Fitch. This is three to four times the national average pay.
During peak years, even restaurant chains had to increase wages in order to attract scarce workers, paying as much as twice the mandated minimum wage.

Old-timer Arthur Christensen, seated at the bar at a local steakhouse, believes the slump was a long time coming.

"The problem is that people who work in resource industries refuse to accept that it could all come to an end, and they spend every dime on expensive trucks and snowmobiles and quads expecting the riches to flow forever," he said, "until we hit a rough patch."

Refusing to cave to pessimism and convinced that oil prices will bounce back, mayor Melissa Blake sees an opportunity to diversify the local economy -- such as tourism.

She points to a new local mega-sports center financed by oil firms that could host national or international sporting events.

Jean-Marc Guillamot, who operates seven hotels in town, said he supports the strategy after seeing reservations drop by 25 percent.

He fears the crisis will last longer than most forecast and that "some folks may need to reconsider their employment options."

But for some, like Chris Fitch, there is no doubt: "One day we'll be looking back and talking about the oil boom at the beginning of the century. The golden age is now past."