How Canada’s hard-hit oilfield workers are demanding respect in ‘environment of absolute desperation’

They are demanding respect, but you also feel the desperation as Canada’s hard hit oil and gas drilling and services companies mobilized now to fix “misinformation” about their industry they say is spun by environmentalists, politicians and celebrities.

Alberta companies for example Bertram Drilling Corp. of Carbon; Lasso Drilling Corp. of Brooks; Predator Drilling Inc. of Red Deer are pushing out a flood of emails documenting their plight, the consequence of the toughest oil downturn inside a generation coupled with new environmental policies.

It’s part of a campaign called Oil Respect launched recently by the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors (CAODC) that utilizes tools right out of the green movement’s playbook – mass emails to decision-makers and thought leaders, petitions, Twitter and facebook, bumper stickers and public speaking.

We have been in an environment of absolute desperation.

The Calgary-based group wants federal and provincial governments being champions of Canadian oil and gas development and approve long-stalled oil pipelines, rather than doling out even more tough medicine, for example aggressive climate change policy, tougher regulation, subsidies for green energy and economic diversification.

In contrast to the measured, impersonal and scripted communication often utilized by gas and oil producers, the campaign by the hard-hat-and-coverall oilfield end from the sector is filled with raw emotion – frustration, anger, dismay – expressed by real people.

It’s a deliberate effort to humanize the sector, it’s effective, and politicians who have gotten away with being dismissive of the fossil gas mileage while embracing critics and competitors ought to be worried because this crowd will not be easily played.

“We are in an environment of absolute desperation,” CAODC president Mark Scholz said in an interview. “In my membership, I’ve a lot of companies which are close to closing their doors. Individuals have this feeling of abandonment and that nobody is speaking up for them, that political leaders wrote off the problem and hoping this will all disappear. It isn’t.”

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An estimated 100,000 oil workers have forfeit their jobs because the oil price downturn began 16 months ago.

According to CAODC, only 51 drilling rigs were working now, or eight per cent out of the 671 in Western Canada’s fleet. That’s the lowest point since April, 1999, and 76 percent below the five-year average, RBC analyst Dan MacDonald said inside a report now. “How low can it go? Hint: Reduced still,” MacDonald said.

Darrell Demers, president of Lea-Der Coatings, an oilfield safety products firm in Spruce Grove, Alta., said it’s unfair to kneecap a significant sector from the Canadian economy through government policy.



“The latest downturn in our economy has drastically impacted our organization which strives to create our quality safety products for the gas and oil industry,” Demers writes in an email. “We have experienced to lessen our manpower by 60 percent. We’ve had a loss of sales of 70 per cent. Our present government isn’t making the right decisions for that gas and oil sector or Albertans.”

Mike Kallal, CEO of Calgary-based Mustang Well Services Ltd., said he’s had to “let go great employees just to stay in business. We’re now asking our employees, past and offer, to support Oil Respect by filling out the petitions requesting recognition from the importance of the and to get pipelines built to ensure that we are able to compete on the level playing field against foreign oil.”

Dave Malone, president of Rezone Well Servicing Ltd. in Red Deer, said it’s a shame that Canadian policy continues to be affected by so much misinformation.

“The oil industry did not ask for a bailout, but permission to construct pipelines using the strictest environmental guidelines,” Malone writes. “It has it has been painful to lay off competent long-term employees, nearly all that have been in this niche for all their working careers.”

Jon Schroter, president of Edmonton-based Victory Well Servicing Ltd., said the goal of the campaign is to fight against “misinformation spread by foreign celebrities, radical environmentalists and grandstanding politicians at a time when thousands of individuals are without work and without expect an instantaneous recovery. It will demand action by federal and provincial governments on pipelines, the safest and most effective way to transport gas and oil products.”

The campaign has got the makings of a political force.

Unlike corporate employees, oilfield workers have not been afraid in the past to carry politicians’ feet to the fire when they didn’t like their policies, for example through getting behind the Wildrose Party in Alberta when the Tories fail them. Today they are motivated to get the oilpatch a much better deal and leaders who speak for them, too.

ccattaneo@nationalpost.com

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