Jim Bertram grew up in Piapot, Sask., played right-wing for the Medicine Hat Tigers, and after 35 years in the oilpatch, is the chairman of Keyera, one of the largest midstream energy companies in Canada.
He spoke with the Medicine Hat News recently about the global market and technological factors that have caused massive price drops.
MHN: There is a lot of concern on the ground that the oilpatch may never recover considering prices, market access, environmental regulation. What’s your view?
JB: There is certainly a lot of change going on, but I’m an optimist.
Clearly we have some headwinds with oil pricing in the world and North American natural gas prices being soft.
The next two or three years, we’ll have volatility, but a point I’d make is that energy demand in the world is not going away.
You have a lot of population that wants our standard of living. India and China will continue to burn a lot of energy.
The market does work and the market is at work right now... (As for supply) you can’t tell me that when you take this many good people and this much good capital out of the market that production isn’t going to drop.
Long term, we’re still going to need a lot of oil. In the meantime it’s confusing because there has been a breakdown of OPEC.
MHN: What about gas pricing?
JB: That’s a North American phenomenon. Technology has made it so that you can get at an abundance of (shale) gas at low prices.
Southeast Alberta (conventional gas) has to compete with that. That’s dry gas which is not as economical as liquid rich gas.
That’s probably not going to change. I don’t want to be negative but it will be tough to compete.
MHN: Is dry gas played out?
JB: People probably said it was played out when I was a teenager, and it went on for many more years. There’s probably a lot of gas in the ground, but can it come out at the right cost?
I see little companies could probably work the gas fields there. But the gas price in North America could stay in the $2 range for a long, long time, because of horizontal drilling technology.
That’s probably good in the long range for things like petrochemical production, which could come back big in Medicine Hat.
The new government seems to believe, like I believe, that Alberta certainly could support more development in that area. We’ve got gas for the next 100 plus years.
MHN: Would you pursue a career in the oilpatch again if you were 22 years old today?
JB: I’m biased having been in the industry for 35 years. I’ve always found it very exciting -- almost as exciting as playing for the Tigers. Like playing for the Tigers it beats you up every once in a while.
In Alberta there still thousands of jobs going forward for engineers, geologists, marketing, logistics, maintenance and operators. I wouldn’t tell anyone to shy away from oil and gas. There are so many different aspects to it and the skills are transferable. It’s probably the same advice I’d give to any small community — broaden your base, be dedicated to continuing to learn and stay as flexible as possible.
with
Jim
Bertram
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41249789 • 03/29/2016
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