Canada's Economy Slips On Oil's Slide
去年夏天，当石油价格逼近每桶150美元的时候，在加拿大阿尔伯达省麦克暮瑞堡(Fort Mcmurray)这个凭藉能源繁荣起来的小城，泰伦斯•科尔斯(Terrance Coles)的家族掘土企业月收入超过20万美元。先前，科尔斯放弃了纽芬兰省一家要倒闭的海产企业，加入到麦克暮瑞堡的石油热中。如今，他没了工作，住在一个表弟的家里。和科尔斯一样，加拿大的经济也因暴跌的油价而遭到严重冲击。加拿大对石油收入的依赖不断增大，过去4年原油出口增长了一倍以上。现在，石油泡沫的破裂让这个国家陷入了比很多经济学家预计的还要深的衰退。美国总统奥巴马周四将出访渥太华。这是他作为总统的首次海外之行。由于加拿大已经成为美国最大的原油供应国，预计能源政策将成为奥巴马与加拿大总理哈珀(Stephen Harper)会谈中的一个重点。加拿大总是能敏锐地感受到美国的经济问题。不过直到去年秋季之前，加拿大看起来都要比它南边的邻居美国能更好地度过危机。企业和消费者债务水平较低没有次级抵押贷款危机，联邦预算和贸易顺差充裕，这些都让加拿大处于更有利的地位。经济学家预计该国的增长会放缓，但是不会陷入衰退。加拿大的石油储量仅次于沙特阿拉伯，位居世界第二位。麦克暮瑞堡地处阿尔伯达省东北部。困扰着这个小城的问题如今正扩散至加拿大经济的许多领域。据行业组织Oil Sands Developers Group的数据，近几个月石油企业已经搁置了近500亿加元（合398亿美元）的投资计划。Canadian Oil Sands Ltd.的首席财务长库必克(Ryan Kubik)说，这将对整个加拿大带来严重冲击；这些都是大笔花不出去的美元。这家公司是石油企业集团Syncrude Canada Ltd.的最大投资者。在石油产区的投资有着巨大的乘数效应，在加拿大制造业持续裁员之际，石油业的投资提振了建筑和重型机械等行业。卡尔加里智库Canada West Foundation的经济学家马赛尔(Jacques Marcil)说，加拿大的大部分地区都没有认识到自己的石油资源，不过在没有真正意识到的情况下，它如今却在依靠石油。环保人士一直在给奥巴马施压，敦促他不要偏离降低美国石油消费应对气候变化问题的竞选承诺。阿尔伯达省的石油产区（也就是油砂区）用类似焦油的物质沥青生产原油，这个过程会比传统的钻井方法释放出更多的温室气体。诚然，油价并非加拿大唯一的经济问题。美国汽车业的深度困境打击了安大略省南部的制造业，那里是很多汽车工厂和零部件厂商所在地。美国的房市泡沫破灭对伐木业造成了冲击，该行业曾是加拿大的第一大行业。加拿大的木材出口较两年前下降了四分之一，如今只占能源出口的五分之一。对加拿大出口商品的需求全线下滑，特别是来自美国的需求减少，这令加拿大12月出现了上世纪70年代以来的首次贸易逆差。今年1月，加拿大失业人口增加12.9万人，创多年来单月最大增幅，失业率推高至7.2%。经济学家如今预计，加拿大经济今年将出现约1.1%的负增长，对此前预测的1.8%的增幅进行了向下修正。为应对经济低迷，加拿大政府上个月公布了一项刺激计划，计划在未来两年支出390亿加元，这也导致了加拿大10多年来首次出现联邦财政赤字。Carl PatzelSyncrude旗下的Aurora油砂矿场麦克暮瑞堡的石油产区和附近其他两个油田有森林覆盖，面积与佛罗里达州差不多。这些油田的日产量为130万桶，占了加拿大石油总产量的一半以上。加拿大原油出口（以美元计价）如今足以和汽车业出口匹敌。加拿大的汽车业集中在安大略省，是制造业的传统支柱。至少自19世纪开始，人们就知道麦克暮瑞堡出产沥青。上个世纪初，勘探者希望将沥青作为铺路材料销售出去。在上世纪60年代末和70年代初，现在的Suncor Energy Inc.和Syncrude等加拿大石油公司开始率先通过挖掘露天矿开采沥青。然而，尽管储量巨大，但由于从油砂中开采石油的成本太高，全球能源业对此并不关注。随着石油价格在1998年跌至每桶最低10.72美元，这种投资就更得不偿失了。后来情况发生了变化。技术的进步，包括用蒸汽提取沥青方面的改进，大大提高了开采的效率。信贷环境的宽松推动了投资的增加。伊拉克战争，再加上委内瑞拉总统查韦斯(Hugo Chavez)的反复无常，让加拿大等政治稳定国家的储藏更具吸引力。随着全球经济的蓬勃发展，石油价格飙升已足以弥补生产成本。来自世界各地的各大石油公司以及加拿大的大企业将资金投入到油砂中。根据Oil Sands Developers Group的数据，包括新建和运营巨大场所的费用在内，2008年的年度开支计划达到了346亿美元，是2003年70亿美元的近五倍。这些资金的流入推动了加元的升值，这反过来打击了制造业的出口，因为加元升值抬高了加拿大产品在美国和其它国家的价格。CIBC World Markets驻多伦多首席经济学家鲁宾(Jeffrey Rubin)说，自2000年以来，加拿大经济已经从安大略的制造业转移到阿尔伯达的石油业。加元升值只是加快了加拿大的去工业化，它自己推动了这个进程。经济实力向西转移显然也符合该国的“均衡”计划，这项计划要求富裕省份资助贫穷省份，以确保全国公共服务的相对平等。作为传统的经济火车头，安大略省从该计划中获得的资金很快将首次超过它投入其中的资金。阿尔伯达拥有加拿大约75%的石油公司，如今它向该计划支付的资金按人均计算超过了其它所有省份。石油区的蓬勃发展创造了数以万计的就业机会。失业工人从经济陷入困境的东部省份纷纷涌入到阿尔伯达省。6年前，56岁的科尔斯和他的两个儿子放弃了他们在纽芬兰的家庭海鲜业务，来到麦克暮瑞堡。一开始科尔斯为石油公司开卡车，最终他和儿子们开设了为石油公司掘土的业务。随着石油业的发展，这项业务蒸蒸日上。他的两个儿子买了新的皮卡和摩托雪橇。其中一个儿子还出手阔绰，买了一辆雪佛兰克尔维特(Corvette)。在过去10年中，这个城市的人口增加了一倍多，达到66,000人。由于交通拥堵，它开始在阿萨巴斯卡河上新建一座5车道的大桥，靠近两座现有的桥梁。每天清晨，在两个加拿大流行的甜圈食品连锁店Tim Horton's门外都会有皮卡车排起长队。等待时间经常超过一个小时。44岁的迈克纳布(Blair Macnab)与他的家人从400英里之外的阿尔伯达省Valleyview搬到这里，接手了一个轮胎和汽车修理店。他把雇员人数增加了一倍多，至21人，但仍需要员工一直工作到深夜。房价飙升，已经同多伦多不相上下。很少有低于50万美元的单户型房屋可以买到。当地的平均工资也是加拿大最高的地区之一。43岁的普莱韦斯(Mark Plewes)从2,200英里的安大略省巴里老家来到这里为新房屋安装电话和互联网。安大略长期性的电信工作很少。所以他在麦克暮瑞堡工作3周，回去同妻子和三个孩子呆上一周，然后再坐车回来。成千上万的其他外来务工者也都采取了这种方式。去年秋天，就在美国和加拿大其他地区开始出现各种经济问题时，阿尔伯塔的油气行业仍是一个亮点。其后，随着全球经济下滑打压需求，石油市场的状况也继续恶化。信贷收紧让问题变得更复杂了。几乎是一夜之间，石油公司纷纷开始推迟投资计划。对科尔斯来说，这个时机简直是太糟糕了。跟儿子们的紧张关系迫使他退出了他们的家庭掘土公司，之后，他从10月份开始在镇上的一家大型建筑公司开沥青车。11月，加拿大石油企业Petro-Canada Oil Sands Inc.宣布推迟在科尔斯工作的那个区域的投资计划。他和其他数百人被解雇了。他试着再找份工作，但实在运气不好。最近的一天晚上，科尔斯在一家为纽芬兰人开的酒吧喝着啤酒。他说，“他们现在不招工了”。跟来自纽芬兰的其他许多人一样，科尔斯正在考虑回老家去。“形势太困难了。”迈克纳布说，他的轮胎店几周前就开始感觉到影响了。最近他告诉店里的员工，他不得不减少他们的工作时间。他们没有再增加新的工具或店里需要的其他物品，而是修补现有的东西。他说，过去几个月来，窃贼已三次光临，有一次偷走了80只轮胎。最近的一个下午，他在店里说，“突然间人们谈论的话题变了，”从高额薪水变成了被盗。他说，“现在我们经常听到这类让人不开心的事。”电信公司工人普莱韦斯说，由于新建住房少了，现在他每天安装的电话数量只有去年秋天的一半。他所在的部门原来有9名同事，最近有两个人被解雇了。位于卡尔加里的Suncor 1月份推迟了耗资140亿加元扩大开采面积的计划。公司首席执行长乔治(Rick George)估计，公司在麦克暮瑞堡油砂区雇用的35,000名临时工到年底前将裁减到10,000人以下。对于过去这里的那种近乎狂热的繁荣，他说，我们是需要调整。但我们不需要通过银行系统和世界经济的垮台来做到这一点。许多工人现在开始返回他们在大西洋沿岸省份的家乡，在那里碰碰运气。20062007年时，每年会有12,000人离开这些地区前往油砂产区。据Atlantic Provinces Economic Council说，去年，外出劳务人员减少到1,700人，而现在的人员流动方向似乎都变了。在麦克暮瑞堡，市场上一些待售的空房子无人问津，这是数年来第一次出现这种情况。阿尔伯达省省长施特麦奇(Ed Stelmach)上个月说，加拿大人难以接受的是，当经济衰退导致油价跌到每桶37美元的地步时，每个人都受到影响。周三，纽约商交所美国基准原油价格收于每桶34.62美元。美国总统奥巴马和加拿大总理哈珀周四在渥太华举行会谈，他们将讨论能源问题。鉴于麦克暮瑞堡油砂区的规模，人们认为在未来数年，这里对加拿大人和对美国经济都将有重要影响。但油砂涉及的环保问题可能会让问题变得更复杂。从矿渣里提炼沥青的传统方法需要在地表开挖很大的露天大坑。开采沥青后再提炼出石油需要消耗大量能源和水，与传统的石油开采方式相比，这种方法获得石油产生的温室气体要多出两倍。奥巴马和哈珀将在环保问题上寻找共同立场，评估油砂的经济价值与其环境成本的关系。双方均对所谓的排放交易制度表现出兴趣，根据这一制度，企业可以买卖温室气体排放额度。许多石油业人士预计，年底前油价将出现反弹，从而重新带动扩张计划。但普莱韦斯或许等不了那么久，他说，麦克暮瑞堡的衰退不太值得他远离安大略的家庭在外辛苦漂泊。他说，安大略眼下并有任何更好的迹象，但我很有可能会回去。Christopher Rhoads相关阅读挪威公司北极采油 最后的能源处女地 2009-02-16石油投资欺诈案出现井喷 2009-01-19中国1个月内二度下调油价 2009-01-15欧佩克减产难改油价跌势 2009-01-15
Last summer, when the price of oil neared $150 a barrel, Terrance Coles's family earth-removal business in this energy boomtown was pulling in revenue of more than $200,000 a month. These days, Mr. Coles, who abandoned a failing seafood business in Newfoundland to join the oil rush here, is out of work, sleeping at the home of a cousin.The Canadian economy, like Mr. Coles, has been blindsided by plummeting oil prices. The nation has ratcheted up its dependence on oil revenue, more than doubling its crude-oil exports over the past four years. Now, the oil bust is pushing it into a deeper recession than many economists had expected.On Thursday, President Barack Obama will visit Ottawa in his first trip abroad as president. Because Canada has become the biggest supplier of crude oil to the U.S., energy policy is expected to be high on the agenda in his meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.Economic problems in the U.S. have always been keenly felt in Canada. But until last fall, Canada looked positioned to weather the storm better than its southern neighbor. Low corporate and consumer debt levels, no subprime-mortgage crisis, and surpluses in the federal budget and trade balance placed it on sounder footing. Economists expected slower growth but no recession.The ills infecting this northeastern Alberta town, which sits atop the world's second-largest oil reserve behind Saudi Arabia, are now spreading across broad swaths of the Canadian economy. In recent months, oil companies have shelved investment plans worth close to 50 billion Canadian dollars (US$39.8 billion), according to the Oil Sands Developers Group, an industry association. 'This is going to have a big impact right across Canada,' says Ryan Kubik, the chief financial officer of Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest investor in a consortium of oil companies called Syncrude Canada Ltd. 'These are huge dollars not being spent.'Oil-patch spending has a big multiplier effect, and boosted sectors such as construction and heavy equipment at a time when the nation's manufacturing industry was steadily shedding jobs. 'Most of Canada doesn't identify itself with oil,' says Jacques Marcil, an economist with the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary think tank. 'But without really realizing it, it now relies on it.'President Obama has been under pressure from environmentalists not to veer from campaign pledges to reduce U.S. oil consumption and to tackle the problem of climate change. The oil patch here in Alberta, known as oil sands, produces crude oil from a tarlike substance called bitumen in a process that emits more greenhouse gases than conventional drilling.To be sure, oil prices aren't Canada's only economic problem. Deep troubles in the U.S. auto industry have crippled manufacturing in southern Ontario, home to many auto plants and parts makers. The U.S. housing bust has hit the timber industry, once one of Canada's biggest businesses. Canadian forestry exports have fallen by a quarter from two years ago, and now amount to about one-fifth of energy exports.The weaker demand for all Canadian exports, particularly from the U.S., tipped Canada's trade balance into deficit in December for the first time since the mid-1970s.In January, unemployment rose by 129,000, the biggest one-month increase in years, pushing the jobless rate to 7.2%. Economists now expect the Canadian economy to contract by about 1.1% this year, a downward revision of earlier forecasts of 1.8% growth.To confront the downturn, the Canadian government last month unveiled a stimulus plan expected to cost C$39 billion over two years, producing a federal budget deficit for the first time in more than a decade.The oil patch around Fort McMurray and two other patches nearby cover an area of boreal forest about the size of Florida. The fields account for 1.3 million barrels of crude oil a day, more than half of Canada's total production. Canada's crude-oil exports, in dollar terms, now rival those of its automotive sector, centered in Ontario, the traditional backbone of its manufacturing sector.The existence of bitumen around Fort McMurray has been known since at least the 19th century. Early last century, prospectors tried to market it for paving roads. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canadian oil companies, led by those now called Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude, began developing open-pit mines to extract it.Yet despite the huge scale of the reserve, the global energy sector paid relatively little notice due to the high cost of producing petroleum from the sands. With the price of oil dropping to as low as $10.72 a barrel in 1998, the investment wasn't worthwhile.Then the game changed.Advances in technology, including improvements in extracting bitumen using steam, made the process more efficient. The availability of easy credit fueled ever bigger investments. The Iraq war, coupled with the unpredictability of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, made reserves in a politically stable country like Canada more attractive. And as the global economy boomed, the price of oil soared, more than covering the costs of production.Major oil companies from around the world, along with big Canadian firms, poured money into the oil sands. Annual spending, including both new construction and the expenses to operate the huge sites, nearly quintupled to a planned $34.6 billion in 2008, from $7 billion in 2003, according to the Oil Sands Developers Group.Those flows contributed to a stronger Canadian dollar, which in turn crimped manufacturing exports by making them more expensive to the U.S. and other countries.Since 2000, the Canadian economy 'has evolved from the manufacturing sector of Ontario to the oil fields of Alberta,' says Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist with CIBC World Markets, in Toronto. The stronger Canadian dollar 'only accelerated the de-industrialization of Canada -- it fed on itself.'The westward shift in economic power is also evident in the country's 'equalization' program, which requires richer provinces to subsidize poorer ones to ensure a relative equality in public services across the country. Ontario, traditionally the economic engine of the country, for the first time in memory will soon receive more assistance from the program than it pays into it. Alberta, home to about 75% of the oil sector, now pays more into the program, on a per capita basis, than any other province.The boom in the oil patch created tens of thousands of jobs. Unemployed workers flooded into Alberta from the economically ailing Atlantic provinces.Mr. Coles, who is 56 years old, and his two sons gave up their family seafood business in Newfoundland six years ago and headed for Fort McMurray. Mr. Coles began driving trucks for oil companies, and eventually he and his sons started a business removing dirt for them. As the oil sector boomed, the business thrived. His two sons bought new pickup trucks and snowmobiles. One splurged on a Corvette.Over the past decade, the population of the town, nicknamed 'Fort McMoney,' doubled to 66,000. Because of traffic snarls, it begin building a five-lane bridge over the Athabasca River, next to two existing bridges. Early each morning, long lines of pickup trucks would form at the two Tim Horton's doughnut shops, a popular Canadian chain. The wait could last an hour.Blair Macnab, 44, moved with his family 400 miles from Valleyview, Alberta, to take over a tire and auto repair business. He more than doubled the staff to 21 workers, but he still needed his crew to work late into evenings.Home prices soared, rivaling those in Toronto. Few single-family homes were available for less than about $500,000. Average wages were among the highest in the country.Mark Plewes, 43, moved 2,200 miles from his home in Barrie, Ontario, to install phone and Internet service in new homes. Regular telecommunications work is scarce in Ontario. So he works for three weeks straight in Fort McMurray, returns to his wife and three kids for a week, then commutes back -- a pattern followed by thousands of other migrants.Last fall, as economic problems multiplied in the U.S. and elsewhere in Canada, Alberta's oil-and-gas industry briefly remained a bright spot. Then the bottom dropped out of the oil market, as the global downturn suppressed demand. Tightening credit compounded the problem. Almost overnight, oil companies started postponing investment plans.For Mr. Coles, the timing couldn't have been worse. After tensions with his sons forced him out of the family excavation business, he began working in October for a large construction company in town, driving a truck hauling bitumen. In November, Petro-Canada Oil Sands Inc., a Canadian oil company, announced it was delaying investment on the site where Mr. Coles was working. He was laid off, along with hundreds of others. He's had no luck finding another job.'They're not hiring now,' said Mr. Coles one recent evening, nursing a beer at a bar catering to Newfoundlanders. Like many others from the hard-luck province, Mr. Coles is considering moving back. 'It's been rough.'Mr. Macnab says his tire shop began feeling the effects a few weeks ago. He told his staff recently they'd have to work fewer hours. Instead of buying new tools and other things needed around the shop, they're repairing what they have. In the past few months, thieves have broken in three times, on one occasion stealing 80 tires, he says.'All of a sudden the conversation changed' from talk about big paychecks to talk about break-ins, he said one recent afternoon at his shop. 'We're hearing more about these shady things now.'Mr. Plewes, the telecom worker, says he is doing about half as many installations a day as in the fall, due to the slowdown in housing construction. Two members of the nine-person team recently were laid off.Rick George, the chief executive of Calgary-based Suncor, which in January postponed site-expansion work worth C$14 billion, estimates that 35,000 temporary workers employed around the Fort McMurray oil sands will be reduced to fewer than 10,000 by the end of the year.Given how frenetic the boom was, he says, 'we needed a correction. What we didn't need is a collapse in the banking system and the world economy to get it.'Many workers are now returning home to the four provinces on the Atlantic coast, taking their chances there. Close to 12,000 a year left that area for the oil sands in 2006 and 2007; migration shrank to 1,700 last year, and now appears shifting the other way, according to the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council. For the first time in years, some vacant houses are languishing on the market in Fort McMurray.'What's difficult to get across to Canadians is that when the economy slows enough to [result in] a $37 barrel of oil, everybody suffers,' Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said last month. On Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude closed at $34.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.In their meeting in Ottawa on Thursday, President Obama and Prime Minister Harper will discuss energy issues. Given the size of the oil patch around Fort McMurray, it is expected to be critical to the Canadian and U.S. economies for years to come.But environmental concerns about the oil sands are likely to complicate matters. The traditional method of extracting the bitumen from the dirt involves large open-pit mines that scar the land. Removing the bitumen and turning it into oil requires lots of energy and water, producing three times the greenhouse gas of conventional oil drilling.Messrs. Obama and Harper are expected to search for common ground on the environmental issues, weighing the economic benefits of the oil sands against its environmental costs. Both sides have signaled interest in a so-called cap-and-trade emissions system, where companies can buy and sell permits for the greenhouse gases they emit.Many oil executives predict prices to rebound before the end of the year, which would reignite expansion plans. But that might not be soon enough for Mr. Plewes, the telecom worker, who says the slowdown in Fort McMurray makes it less worthwhile for him to be away from his family in Ontario.'Ontario doesn't look any better right now,' he says. 'But the chances are very good I'm moving back.'Christopher Rhoads
Last summer, when the price of oil neared $150 a barrel, Terrance Coles's family earth-removal business in this energy boomtown was pulling in revenue of more than $200,000 a month. These days, Mr. Coles, who abandoned a failing seafood business in Newfoundland to join the oil rush here, is out of work, sleeping at the home of a cousin.The Canadian economy, like Mr. Coles, has been blindsided by plummeting oil prices. The nation has ratcheted up its dependence on oil revenue, more than doubling its crude-oil exports over the past four years. Now, the oil bust is pushing it into a deeper recession than many economists had expected.On Thursday, President Barack Obama will visit Ottawa in his first trip abroad as president. Because Canada has become the biggest supplier of crude oil to the U.S., energy policy is expected to be high on the agenda in his meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.Economic problems in the U.S. have always been keenly felt in Canada. But until last fall, Canada looked positioned to weather the storm better than its southern neighbor. Low corporate and consumer debt levels, no subprime-mortgage crisis, and surpluses in the federal budget and trade balance placed it on sounder footing. Economists expected slower growth but no recession.The ills infecting this northeastern Alberta town, which sits atop the world's second-largest oil reserve behind Saudi Arabia, are now spreading across broad swaths of the Canadian economy. In recent months, oil companies have shelved investment plans worth close to 50 billion Canadian dollars (US$39.8 billion), according to the Oil Sands Developers Group, an industry association. 'This is going to have a big impact right across Canada,' says Ryan Kubik, the chief financial officer of Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest investor in a consortium of oil companies called Syncrude Canada Ltd. 'These are huge dollars not being spent.'Oil-patch spending has a big multiplier effect, and boosted sectors such as construction and heavy equipment at a time when the nation's manufacturing industry was steadily shedding jobs. 'Most of Canada doesn't identify itself with oil,' says Jacques Marcil, an economist with the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary think tank. 'But without really realizing it, it now relies on it.'President Obama has been under pressure from environmentalists not to veer from campaign pledges to reduce U.S. oil consumption and to tackle the problem of climate change. The oil patch here in Alberta, known as oil sands, produces crude oil from a tarlike substance called bitumen in a process that emits more greenhouse gases than conventional drilling.To be sure, oil prices aren't Canada's only economic problem. Deep troubles in the U.S. auto industry have crippled manufacturing in southern Ontario, home to many auto plants and parts makers. The U.S. housing bust has hit the timber industry, once one of Canada's biggest businesses. Canadian forestry exports have fallen by a quarter from two years ago, and now amount to about one-fifth of energy exports.The weaker demand for all Canadian exports, particularly from the U.S., tipped Canada's trade balance into deficit in December for the first time since the mid-1970s.In January, unemployment rose by 129,000, the biggest one-month increase in years, pushing the jobless rate to 7.2%. Economists now expect the Canadian economy to contract by about 1.1% this year, a downward revision of earlier forecasts of 1.8% growth.To confront the downturn, the Canadian government last month unveiled a stimulus plan expected to cost C$39 billion over two years, producing a federal budget deficit for the first time in more than a decade.The oil patch around Fort McMurray and two other patches nearby cover an area of boreal forest about the size of Florida. The fields account for 1.3 million barrels of crude oil a day, more than half of Canada's total production. Canada's crude-oil exports, in dollar terms, now rival those of its automotive sector, centered in Ontario, the traditional backbone of its manufacturing sector.The existence of bitumen around Fort McMurray has been known since at least the 19th century. Early last century, prospectors tried to market it for paving roads. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Canadian oil companies, led by those now called Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude, began developing open-pit mines to extract it.Yet despite the huge scale of the reserve, the global energy sector paid relatively little notice due to the high cost of producing petroleum from the sands. With the price of oil dropping to as low as $10.72 a barrel in 1998, the investment wasn't worthwhile.Then the game changed.Advances in technology, including improvements in extracting bitumen using steam, made the process more efficient. The availability of easy credit fueled ever bigger investments. The Iraq war, coupled with the unpredictability of Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, made reserves in a politically stable country like Canada more attractive. And as the global economy boomed, the price of oil soared, more than covering the costs of production.Major oil companies from around the world, along with big Canadian firms, poured money into the oil sands. Annual spending, including both new construction and the expenses to operate the huge sites, nearly quintupled to a planned $34.6 billion in 2008, from $7 billion in 2003, according to the Oil Sands Developers Group.Those flows contributed to a stronger Canadian dollar, which in turn crimped manufacturing exports by making them more expensive to the U.S. and other countries.Since 2000, the Canadian economy 'has evolved from the manufacturing sector of Ontario to the oil fields of Alberta,' says Jeffrey Rubin, chief economist with CIBC World Markets, in Toronto. The stronger Canadian dollar 'only accelerated the de-industrialization of Canada -- it fed on itself.'The westward shift in economic power is also evident in the country's 'equalization' program, which requires richer provinces to subsidize poorer ones to ensure a relative equality in public services across the country. Ontario, traditionally the economic engine of the country, for the first time in memory will soon receive more assistance from the program than it pays into it. Alberta, home to about 75% of the oil sector, now pays more into the program, on a per capita basis, than any other province.The boom in the oil patch created tens of thousands of jobs. Unemployed workers flooded into Alberta from the economically ailing Atlantic provinces.Mr. Coles, who is 56 years old, and his two sons gave up their family seafood business in Newfoundland six years ago and headed for Fort McMurray. Mr. Coles began driving trucks for oil companies, and eventually he and his sons started a business removing dirt for them. As the oil sector boomed, the business thrived. His two sons bought new pickup trucks and snowmobiles. One splurged on a Corvette.Over the past decade, the population of the town, nicknamed 'Fort McMoney,' doubled to 66,000. Because of traffic snarls, it begin building a five-lane bridge over the Athabasca River, next to two existing bridges. Early each morning, long lines of pickup trucks would form at the two Tim Horton's doughnut shops, a popular Canadian chain. The wait could last an hour.Blair Macnab, 44, moved with his family 400 miles from Valleyview, Alberta, to take over a tire and auto repair business. He more than doubled the staff to 21 workers, but he still needed his crew to work late into evenings.Home prices soared, rivaling those in Toronto. Few single-family homes were available for less than about $500,000. Average wages were among the highest in the country.Mark Plewes, 43, moved 2,200 miles from his home in Barrie, Ontario, to install phone and Internet service in new homes. Regular telecommunications work is scarce in Ontario. So he works for three weeks straight in Fort McMurray, returns to his wife and three kids for a week, then commutes back -- a pattern followed by thousands of other migrants.Last fall, as economic problems multiplied in the U.S. and elsewhere in Canada, Alberta's oil-and-gas industry briefly remained a bright spot. Then the bottom dropped out of the oil market, as the global downturn suppressed demand. Tightening credit compounded the problem. Almost overnight, oil companies started postponing investment plans.For Mr. Coles, the timing couldn't have been worse. After tensions with his sons forced him out of the family excavation business, he began working in October for a large construction company in town, driving a truck hauling bitumen. In November, Petro-Canada Oil Sands Inc., a Canadian oil company, announced it was delaying investment on the site where Mr. Coles was working. He was laid off, along with hundreds of others. He's had no luck finding another job.'They're not hiring now,' said Mr. Coles one recent evening, nursing a beer at a bar catering to Newfoundlanders. Like many others from the hard-luck province, Mr. Coles is considering moving back. 'It's been rough.'Mr. Macnab says his tire shop began feeling the effects a few weeks ago. He told his staff recently they'd have to work fewer hours. Instead of buying new tools and other things needed around the shop, they're repairing what they have. In the past few months, thieves have broken in three times, on one occasion stealing 80 tires, he says.'All of a sudden the conversation changed' from talk about big paychecks to talk about break-ins, he said one recent afternoon at his shop. 'We're hearing more about these shady things now.'Mr. Plewes, the telecom worker, says he is doing about half as many installations a day as in the fall, due to the slowdown in housing construction. Two members of the nine-person team recently were laid off.Rick George, the chief executive of Calgary-based Suncor, which in January postponed site-expansion work worth C$14 billion, estimates that 35,000 temporary workers employed around the Fort McMurray oil sands will be reduced to fewer than 10,000 by the end of the year.Given how frenetic the boom was, he says, 'we needed a correction. What we didn't need is a collapse in the banking system and the world economy to get it.'Many workers are now returning home to the four provinces on the Atlantic coast, taking their chances there. Close to 12,000 a year left that area for the oil sands in 2006 and 2007; migration shrank to 1,700 last year, and now appears shifting the other way, according to the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council. For the first time in years, some vacant houses are languishing on the market in Fort McMurray.'What's difficult to get across to Canadians is that when the economy slows enough to [result in] a $37 barrel of oil, everybody suffers,' Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach said last month. On Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude closed at $34.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.In their meeting in Ottawa on Thursday, President Obama and Prime Minister Harper will discuss energy issues. Given the size of the oil patch around Fort McMurray, it is expected to be critical to the Canadian and U.S. economies for years to come.But environmental concerns about the oil sands are likely to complicate matters. The traditional method of extracting the bitumen from the dirt involves large open-pit mines that scar the land. Removing the bitumen and turning it into oil requires lots of energy and water, producing three times the greenhouse gas of conventional oil drilling.Messrs. Obama and Harper are expected to search for common ground on the environmental issues, weighing the economic benefits of the oil sands against its environmental costs. Both sides have signaled interest in a so-called cap-and-trade emissions system, where companies can buy and sell permits for the greenhouse gases they emit.Many oil executives predict prices to rebound before the end of the year, which would reignite expansion plans. But that might not be soon enough for Mr. Plewes, the telecom worker, who says the slowdown in Fort McMurray makes it less worthwhile for him to be away from his family in Ontario.'Ontario doesn't look any better right now,' he says. 'But the chances are very good I'm moving back.'Christopher Rhoads