FP backgrounder on the local oil and gas industry

From the Financial Post's Claudia Cattaneo, a feature piece on the local oil and gas industry over a year after the Hebron failure.

Your humble e-scribbler is quoted in the piece.

Even as people leave the province in large numbers to make a living they can't find locally, they support his bashing of outside interests, whether its big oil companies or the federal government, because he stands up for Newfoundland. They buy into Mr. Williams' claim that the government negotiated a bad deal on Hibernia and now must ensure the government takes a fair cut from future projects.

Mr. Gibbons, who signed the Hibernia deal nearly 17 years ago in an environment of low oil prices and greater risk, said it was a huge leap for the province.

"It's the deal that gave us the industry that we have today," he said.

After a decade with Jacques Whitford, Mr. Gibbons retired yesterday, but his interest in a thriving offshore hasn't diminished.

"Please, get at the table and negotiate, and let's get on with the next projects," he pleaded.

"We are going to lose the skilled people that are required even for the construction part. Today, they are flying to Alberta and flying back home. But in five years' time, they may move the spouse and the kids will do their education there. Then they might never come back."

As an interesting addition to that comment, check out Greg Locke's most recent blog entry. Locke is a professional photographer and journalist - as well as an avowed Newfoundland nationalist - who recently left the province to take up a management job with a string of Alberta weeklies.

His reports from Alberta on the real attitudes of ex-pats living there may give a clue to why people like Gibbons are so concerned:

Of my conversations so far with the Newfoundlanders, I'm hearing the "politically correct" phrases about returning to but it's not said with much enthusiasm. No mourning or homesickness to be heard. It's lacking that convincing little flutter in the voice. Indeed, those who have a decent paying job here are looking pretty happy. The flags may be flying proud but they are not ready to sacrifice their livelihoods or future to return to Newfoundland .

Locke's also got some observations on the Alberta government's royalty regime and its tax policy for those in this province who harbour more than a few delusions about how this province supposedly has signed bad oil development deals in the past or how this province is treated unfairly compared to Alberta.

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