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business and industry Liquid gold landscape By COLLIN GALLANT


Hydraulic fracturing —and the massive liquefied natural gas reserves it began producing in 2009 — quite simply decimated energy exploration in southeast Alberta.


With gas prices sitting well below the tipping point there’s little chance companies will unleash capital for new conventional exploration in the shallow, dry-gas region.


However, that’s not to say the local patch has completely dried up, and industry players say as bad as it’s been, the local scene has stabilized.


Some argue that Medicine Hat has even found a niche as an outside base for striking at oil development outside the region and working diversified gas-oil plays closer to home.


“We see the opportunity for Medicine Hat,” said Chris Challis, the CEO of Maverick Oilfield Services, which in late 2013 bought Redcliff-based Toro Projects with the aim of keeping the local shop operating.


The expansion accomplished several goals for the Provost-based contractor.


“The proximity for Medicine Hat, with its depth of services and talent — the access to great labour pool — helps us with what we’re doing on the other side in Saskatchewan.”


“We’re chasing the capital,” said Challis,


who estimates that up to one-third of the work in the southern shop is aimed eastward.


“The other side is that we have longer term customers there (around Medicine Hat) that are still active. And there’s an infrastructure piece that still needs support.”


The eventual goal is to have a strong operation in southeastern Alberta when the local gas scene strengthens.


Meanwhile, local tight-oil plays, combined with operations on CFB Suffield and Newell County, are supplemented with conventional heavy crude in Kindersley in west-central Saskatchewan, near-Bakken foundation in the province’s southwest.


The same technology that unlocked shale gas is now standard in mature oil fields in central and northeastern Alberta to unlock new production.


“If this is a slow time, I don’t know what we’d do if it got busy,” said Danny Meier, the chief of operations at Iron Horse Coil Tubing.


The part owner of the locally-owned, Dunmore-based shop, says that while dry gas exploration has fallen hard, more complicated well-head work on oil and liquid gas has boomed for four years.


“We’ve been busy the whole time, and I know there are companies that haven’t, we’ve been fortunate ones,” said Meier. “We’ve added employees.”


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2014 REPORT ON SOUTHEAST ALBERTA


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