Labor shortage in Canada energy business causes wages to spike

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix:
Energy companies trying to raise almost $50 billion for Canada’s first network of natural gas export terminals will face an even more basic challenge: finding the workers to build them.

Housing complexes boasting an indoor golf driving range, a two-story gymnasium and a private movie theater are among perks companies are mulling to lure tradesmen to Canada’s remote, snow-swept West Coast and mitigate wage inflation that could blow up project budgets. Labor shortages in the country already have pushed wages for some oil and gas workers as much as 60 percent higher than their counterparts in the U.S., according to U.S. and Canadian labor data.

“The lack of skilled workers is a major component for the reason why you’re often behind schedule and over budget,” said Geoff Hill, partner and oil and gas leader at financial advisers Deloitte Canada in Calgary. A dearth of labor for oil sands and mining will be “exacerbated” by a new wave of construction to enable gas exports, he said.

Chevron Corp. will need as many as 5,500 workers to build a pipeline across Canada’s western mountains and a plant on the country’s frosty Pacific Coast for shipping gas to Asia, according to company estimates.

It may be vying for workers with as many as nine other proposed liquefied natural gas, or LNG, export terminals on the West Coast that have received or applied for permits. Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Petroliam Nasional Bhd. are among energy companies planning to profit from rising gas demand in Asia, whereJapan imported 6 trillion yen ($58 billion) of LNG last year.
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That shows what happens when you unleash private sector investments in energy as opposed to the Obama administration's wrong headed policy of artificial scarcity.  If Obama would get out of the way of development of US resources on federal controlled sites he could immediately create thousands of good paying jobs and the energy produced could help return manufacturing jobs to this country.  Those would be real jobs as opposed to the government subsidized alternative energy investments Obama has wasted millions on.  The irony is that these jobs would create revenue for the government rather than costing taxpayers more money.

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