Local work helping western oil sands
By Leith Dunick, tbnewswatch // June 26, 2009
It’s big, it looks complicated, it’s worth a half a million dollars and it’s an integral part of Thunder Bay’s economic future.
On Friday Venshore Mechanical Ltd. unveiled one of two fuel offloading modules it has built – with the assistance of several other local-area companies – and plans to deliver to western Canada for use in the multi-billion oil sands project.
Company president John Jurcik said the module, whose piping reminds one of a scaled-down version of a factory boiler room, will eventually be used for filtering, dyeing and metering fuel before it’s transferred to a delivery truck.
Jurcik, who hopes to build another four modules should a tentative order be finalized, and whose company is a charter member of the two-year-old, 22-member Thunder Bay Oil Sands Consortium, said it’s a sure sign that Thunder Bay can play a large role in the fuel-fired economy of the west.
"That’s what we want to do. We want to be able to bring the work to Thunder Bay and utilize our talent here in Thunder Bay and ship it down the road. Now, it doesn’t have to be west, it could be east, it could be anywhere. It’s something we want to do to retain our tradespeople here in Thunder Bay and keep them going while the forestry sector is still in a downturn," said Jurcik, also the chairman of the TBOSC.
While tumbling oil prices put a scare into the entire oil sands project, the stabilization and apparent recovery have built confidence back into the industry. Jurcik said the stumble actually helped a company like his when oil industry executives began to look a little more closely at their bottom line.
"After the price dropped for the oil, they throttled back and said we’ve got to find a cheaper alternative. We can’t just be giving out this work to the local guys. We have to source other areas. And they need labour as well," he said, adding even when the shipping costs are added in, Venshore can still beat western prices.
Richard Pohler, acting CEO of the city’s economic development commission, said he hopes this is the start of a string of success stories and partnerships with the oil sands industry.
"Today is proof that it can be translated into both jobs and money for these local companies to sustain their operation here, to keep the talent that they have here and to open up a whole new market for Thunder Bay, which has historically been natural-resource driven, particularly in the forest products and somewhat in the mining industry," Pohler said.
The module weighs in at about 30,000 pounds and measures 16 feet wide by about 30 feet long. It will travel west with a police escort via the Trans-Canada highway.
