Fort McMurray with the historic "Athabasca Tar Sands" has emerged as Alberta's and Canada's pot of gold in the energy dependency field that we all live in 2009/2010. Things can only get better and more prosperous both for Alberta , Fort Mc Murray and the Edmonton based economic hinterlands.
Famous for its oil sands and pipeline sectors of natural gas, Fort McMurray also boasts of forestry, tourism, and retail business. The municipality holds great commercial potential and is well connected by road, rail and airways. It can well be said that this boom town in Northern Alberta is what is driving Canada's economyin 2012.
What makes Fort McMurray so interesting are two points. One in spite of its small apparent size and population ( only 65,000 out of a provincial total population of 3.600,000). Second is its people. Half are locals born and raised in the area , or at least in the Canadian province of Alberta. The other half are from "somewhere else". The friction between the "locals" and the others is whether the newcomers have come to stay , contribute and grow within the new prosperity or are they self serving individuals only in Fort Mc Murray "for the money". The apparent conflict continues on and serves as bone of contention within the local communities.
Housing prices in Fort McMurray is at its peak and is the costliest in all of Alberta despite its remoteness. The city's natural beauty remains pure and unadulterated and provides for unparalleled vacation experiences. There are in-numerous sand dunes to be explored, trails to be hiked and pristine waters waiting to be fished.
Fort McMurray Alberta has pleasant summers when the temperature ranges between 10 to 16 degrees centigrade but the winters can be quite cold with the temperatures reaching -18. 8 degrees centigrade and an average snowfall of up to 61. 3 inches. Situated in the boreal forest where the Clearwater River and the Athabasca River meet, it is at a distance of 37 miles (60 kms) on the Westside of Saskatchewan and about 270 miles (435 kms) northeast of Edmonton's highway 63.
There is no doubt about it. Even with the additions to the economy of tourism , pulp and paper and being a well situated regional transport hub , Fort McMurray is basically a one industry mining town. In this case the mineral is black gold - oil - extracted by steam from mined "tar sands".
Fort McMurray is Alberta's new frontier. Its "gold" boom town so to speak based on the new black gold - oil that is relatively easy to extract and is profitable to process at today's high crude oil prices. The economy and the growth of the whole industry and whole area depends to a great extent on continued high oil crude oil prices. It is only profitable to extract the crude oil from the tar sands at a given crude oil price. A lot of energy , and water which is in short supply as well , in processing the crude from the oil sand base. New extraction processes could come into development and into play , which require less fuel to extract the crude oil. Other processes , techniques and procedures are being looked at , and are in the research phases to require less precious water in the extraction process and the whole manufacturing process and sequence. Only time will tell the long term viability of this special economy as a whole.
Famous for its oil sands and pipeline sectors of natural gas, Fort McMurray also boasts of forestry, tourism, and retail business. The municipality holds great commercial potential and is well connected by road, rail and airways. It can well be said that this boom town in Northern Alberta is what is driving Canada's economyin 2012.
What makes Fort McMurray so interesting are two points. One in spite of its small apparent size and population ( only 65,000 out of a provincial total population of 3.600,000). Second is its people. Half are locals born and raised in the area , or at least in the Canadian province of Alberta. The other half are from "somewhere else". The friction between the "locals" and the others is whether the newcomers have come to stay , contribute and grow within the new prosperity or are they self serving individuals only in Fort Mc Murray "for the money". The apparent conflict continues on and serves as bone of contention within the local communities.
Housing prices in Fort McMurray is at its peak and is the costliest in all of Alberta despite its remoteness. The city's natural beauty remains pure and unadulterated and provides for unparalleled vacation experiences. There are in-numerous sand dunes to be explored, trails to be hiked and pristine waters waiting to be fished.
Fort McMurray Alberta has pleasant summers when the temperature ranges between 10 to 16 degrees centigrade but the winters can be quite cold with the temperatures reaching -18. 8 degrees centigrade and an average snowfall of up to 61. 3 inches. Situated in the boreal forest where the Clearwater River and the Athabasca River meet, it is at a distance of 37 miles (60 kms) on the Westside of Saskatchewan and about 270 miles (435 kms) northeast of Edmonton's highway 63.
There is no doubt about it. Even with the additions to the economy of tourism , pulp and paper and being a well situated regional transport hub , Fort McMurray is basically a one industry mining town. In this case the mineral is black gold - oil - extracted by steam from mined "tar sands".
Fort McMurray is Alberta's new frontier. Its "gold" boom town so to speak based on the new black gold - oil that is relatively easy to extract and is profitable to process at today's high crude oil prices. The economy and the growth of the whole industry and whole area depends to a great extent on continued high oil crude oil prices. It is only profitable to extract the crude oil from the tar sands at a given crude oil price. A lot of energy , and water which is in short supply as well , in processing the crude from the oil sand base. New extraction processes could come into development and into play , which require less fuel to extract the crude oil. Other processes , techniques and procedures are being looked at , and are in the research phases to require less precious water in the extraction process and the whole manufacturing process and sequence. Only time will tell the long term viability of this special economy as a whole.
About the Author:
Located north of Edmonton The oil center of northern Alberta -Fort McMurrayAirport (ICAO Code CYMM, IATA Code YMM) is serviced by Air Canada, Air Canada Jazz, Integra Air, McMurray Aviation, Sunjet, Northwestern Air and WestJet with scheduled flights to Calgary, Edmonton, Fort Chipewyan, Fort Smith, Lethbridge, Peace River, Saskatoon, Toronto, Vancouver and St. John's
