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By Tyler Durden

Analyzing provincial statistics in Canada is an exercise in spotting the odd one out.

Alberta, the heart of Canada’s dying oil patch, is a cautionary tale about boom and bust cycles and just how dramatic the difference can be between the good times and the bad.

To be sure, we’ve spilled quite a bit of digital ink documenting the plight of the provincial economy and we’ve also outlined some of the more shocking statistics that touch on the human toll exerted by plunging crude prices. Food bank usage in the province, for instance, rose 23% Y/Y from Q1 2014 through Q1 2015 and suicide rates had risen by a third through the summer of last year.

As far as the economy, the latest data out earlier this month show Alberta was the only province in which real GDP contracted in 2015. “Alberta is facing another recession this year as cuts in energy investment and job losses hit the economy hard,” Conference Board of Canada said, adding that “until imbalances in global oil markets improve, prospects for a recovery are bleak.”

Meanwhile, a report out Wednesday showed that while manufacturing sales across Canada rose 2.3% in January, Y/Y sales plunged 13.2% in Alberta. That’s the sixth decline in seven months and a sure sign that the oil slump has spilled over into the rest of the economy. Provincial manufacturing sales dropped 16% last year.

But at the end of the day, these are all just numbers. In order to get a true sense of the malaise, we bring you the following video and commentary from CBC, who shows you the people behind the statistics.

From CBC

Warren Sonnenberg, 35

Sonnenberg worked for five years on a drilling rig in the oil patch. He started at the bottom as a leasehand and worked his way up to derrickhand. Before he was laid off in January he was making $40 an hour. He never thought the good times would end.

“You’re feeling this stuff for the first time, and you’re feeling this worry and this fear and you’re looking around and you don’t see any relief,” he says. “You want to speak to other people but they’re embarrassed by their own situations.

Gert Raynar

“We are the canary in the coal mine,” Raynar says about the food bank in Leduc where she is the manager. Raynar has never been busier, and she says it’s the same situation all across the province.

Demand on the food bank in Medicine Hat, she says, is up an unbelievable 500 per cent over this time last year.

Clarence Shields

Clarence Shields owns the sprawling Blackjacks roadhouse in Leduc. It’s a kind of unofficial union hall for oil workers.

He says, “you’re seeing a rehash of the ’80s. You’re seeing a generation that has never experienced as quick and as decisive a downturn as we got right now.

…read more

Source: Meet The People Behind The Death Of Canada’s Oil Patch

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By Tyler Durden

Submitted by Robert Berke via OilPrice.com,

As reported around the world, Russia’s decision to greatly reduce its military presence in Syria, coming as it did with little warning, has left the world struggling for explanations.

After having rescued the Syrian Government’s position in Syria from certain defeat and securing a partial truce along with the onset of an imminent peace conference, the partial withdrawal is seen by many as a message to the Assad government to not take Russia’s military aid for granted, and to be more flexible in the upcoming peace negotiations.

If we assume that all wars are essentially trade wars grown large, and in the Middle East, they almost always involve energy, then the Russian gambit in Syria can be viewed from a different perspective. Russia’s economy is currently in recession, partly as a result of western sanctions, but much more seriously hurt by the crashing of energy prices.

Russia’s warming relations with Saudi Arabia has helped to bring about an OPEC-Russian sponsored freeze in oil production, with only Iran refusing to comply. With the Syrian withdrawal, Russia has tempered a major political feud with the Saudis over Russia’s support for Assad, a move that at once increases the prospects for a Russian-Saudi agreement on oil production cutbacks.

There are also many who think that Russia is also increasing pressure on its allies to be more flexible, not only in peace talks but also oil production cuts. With the withdrawal of the Russian protective air shield, Iran and Hezbollah’s ground forces in Syria are suddenly exposed to the threat of Saudi and Turkish air attacks. Will the threat of a looming military catastrophe in Syria force Iran to comply with production cuts?

Many oil insiders believe that after decades of punishing western sanctions, Iran’s oil industry is in no condition to meet its avowed quota for production, so that an agreement on cuts might cause little sacrifice.

Russia’s actions may well have staved off other threats to its business. Recall that Robert Kennedy Jr., the nephew of the slain U.S. President, recently published an article in Sputnik, claiming that the major reason for the west’s attempt to overthrow the Assad government was to build a natural gas pipeline from Qatar that traversed Syria, capturing its newly discovered offshore reserves, and continued on through Turkey to the EU, as a major competitor to Russia’s Gazprom.

By re-establishing the Assad government in Syria, and permanently placing its forces at Syrian bases, the Russian’s have placed an impenetrable obstacle to the development of the Qatar gas pipeline. Russia has also placed itself at the nexus point of other new offshore gas discoveries in the Eastern Mediterranean, including Israel, Cyprus, and Greece.

It’s not hard to imagine a new Russian pipeline to Europe serving these new partners. Could easing of sanctions also lead to the implementation of the long-stalled plans of Gazprom for a second pipeline under the Baltic Sea to Germany for Russia and its partners, Royal …read more

Source: Is This The Rationale Behind Russia’s Withdrawal From Syria?

    

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