Boatbuilders among those heading to oil patch on trade mission
By MICHAEL LIGHTSTONE Staff Reporter - The Chronicle Herald
When you’re in the boat-building and repair business, the landlocked province of Alberta doesn’t exactly jump out as a potential market for marine-related services.
But that’s where management from a Digby County firm is headed on a trade mission with Atlantic Canada’s premiers.
A. F. Theriault & Son Ltd., one of the largest privately owned shipyards in the Atlantic region, is among five Nova Scotia companies that are to take part in next week’s trip to oil-rich Alberta.
The business trip begins Thursday and will include stops in Edmonton and Fort McMurray, a boomtown reaping the benefits of growing oil-sands production.
For Everett Titus, marine superintendent at the Meteghan River firm, conducting commerce in a place that’s more famous for its majestic mountains than its western waterways has more to do with the nature of his business than finished products.
He said a crucial part of shipbuilding is forming structural components that could be used by such Alberta energy producers as Syncrude Canada Ltd.
"It’s just a matter of getting the specifics of exactly what they need," Mr. Titus told The Chronicle Herald on Thursday. "We do have the welders; we do have the machinists; we do have whatever it takes to do that."
Mr. Titus said his firm not only has the expertise to accommodate potential orders from Alberta, but the company has also lost many skilled workers to that province. He said about 50 employees have moved there during the past couple of years.
According to the Alberta government, the province had the highest rate of economic growth in Canada, at 3.7 per cent, over the past decade. In 2005, Alberta’s economy grew by an estimated 4.5 per cent and experts predict the province "will have one of Canada’s top performing economies in the future," a website says.
Some 35 Atlantic Canadian companies are participating in the trade mission. Most are in the construction, steel and engineering sectors.
Andy MacGregor, co-owner of the MacGregor Group in New Glasgow, said his metal fabrication plant is used to doing business with firms in the energy sector, so the Alberta trip is a fine way to see if his company can serve local firms’ needs. He attended a previous trade mission there in early December, he said.
"There are definitely opportunities there," said Mr. MacGregor, whose business, which he shares with his brother, includes a machine and welding shop. "What we’re trying to do is get familiarized with the places we’re wanting to do business with."
In Dartmouth, the president of an engineering and consulting firm said his company also hopes to play a role in Alberta’s active economy.
"We feel this trade mission will raise the profile of our business and highlight Neill and Gunter as a logical partner for business ventures," Peter Rent of Neill and Gunter (Nova Scotia) Ltd. said in a release. "As a design engineering firm with experience in multiple business sectors, we have the capability as suppliers to reduce the gaps that Alberta is experiencing."
The East Coast premiers are scheduled to meet with business operators from both regions, tour job sites, meet with new Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach and sit down with the editorial board at the Edmonton Journal.
( mlightstone@herald.ca)