Quebec college quietly nurtures province?s energy future

Nicolas Van Praet? Jun 23, 2012 ? 6:01 AM ET | Last Updated: Jun 22, 2012 2:01 PM ET

MONTREAL ? A small regional college is quietly moving ahead with Quebec?s first oil and gas service industry training program in a bid to develop a local pool of expertise for the province?s nascent energy sector.

But its graduates may never get jobs at home.

Quebec has de-facto moratoriums in place on all oil and gas activity in a portion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well as on shale gas exploration and drilling while environmental evaluations run their course. And although the current Liberal government has made clear it wants to move ahead with commercialization as a way to generate much-needed public revenues, there is no guarantee the environmental panels will give their assent or that the next government (to be elected by late 2013 at the latest) will similarly back the industry.

For the time being at least, telling people you?re training to work in an oil and gas field in Quebec is like telling them you work in a bakery making maple leaf-shaped doughnuts loaded with transfats. It doesn?t come with a whole lot of societal respect.

That?s what makes the technical program offered by C?gep de Thetford in Thetford Mines all the more intriguing. This is a province where shale gas in particular has been vilified by critics and companies such as paper-maker Cascades Inc., which previously supported development, are re-evaluating their positions. Training local oil and gas service workers for a local industry that may never develop is either remarkably prescient or over-optimistic.

At stake is an estimated $3-billion per year worth of service contract revenue once the industry starts exploration and production in earnest. At stake also is developing a mass of local expertise that will help drive commercialization costs down and profits up.

?Right now, there are Western Canadian service companies that are interested in setting up offices here,? says Mario L?vesque, president of the seven-month-old Oil and Gas Services Association of Qu?bec and owner of S?ismotion Inc., a specialist in rights-of-way and well permits. ?I don?t have a problem with that. But I?m convinced we can develop a basin of local workers.?

The services association is partnering with C?gep de Thetford on the training initiative. The college has an existing program in mineral technology that will be expanded. Of roughly 400 oil and gas service jobs identified, half of them require training of less than 12 weeks, Mr. L?vesque says.

?My vision is that we will have drill crews that stay in eastern Canada, fracturing crews that stay in eastern Canada and workers for a local industry,? he says. ?I?m in favour of taking control of the oil and gas service industry in all of eastern Canada from here.?

The current lack of local labour and equipment in Quebec means service personnel and machines have to be transported from Alberta. That has driven up the cost of drilling and fracking for each pilot test well to about $15-million in the province, three times as much as similar wells in Western Canada, says Michael Binnion, CEO of Calgary-based Questerre Energy Corp., a key developer of Quebec?s Utica shale gas resource.

?It?s not for us to tell the government to move forward with oil and gas commercialization or not,? says Robert Rousseau, study director for C?gep de Thetford. ?But if it chooses to go ahead, there will be thousands of workers that need to be trained. We?re trying to get ahead of that demand.?

Says Mr. Binnion: ?Politically this is about local benefits. Economically it?s about us being able to drill wells at the same cost they can drill wells in Alberta or B.C. or Pennsylvania. We?re going to end up with head-to-head gas competition between Quebec and Pennsylvania. So [this is] economically critical.?

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