Canada:

Geothermal Industry Reaches Out to Out-of-Work Oil Drillers (Corporate Knights)

Lower oil prices means the oil patch’s pain is a geothermal company’s gain. Will the Alberta government take note?

The job losses related to $55-a-barrel oil could be as high as 23,000 this year as Alberta’s oil patch adjusts to new market realities.

That was the recent warning from the Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors, which predicted that the number of active drilling rigs in service will fall to an average of 203 a day in 2015 from 370 a day last year – a 41 per cent drop.

“If there are not as many drilling rigs working, there will not be as many rig workers on the job,” said association president Mark Scholz. “This will have significant adverse effects on indirect employment throughout the economy, well beyond just rig workers.”

That’s bad news for Alberta – and bad news for the country more broadly – but a silver lining is in there somewhere, at least as far as Canada’s nascent geothermal industry is concerned.

Next Monday, the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association (CanGEA) will be holding a technology transfer workshop aimed directly at oil and gas contractors looking for ways to adapt their technologies and approaches to geothermal development.

The event will be held at the Calgary Petroleum Club, and while it was planned before the oil-price collapse, CanGEA chair Alison Thompson said the timing is fortuitous.

“These drilling rig operators are selling their services right now at half the price,” said Thompson. “So this is a prime opportunity for us to be more cost-competitive, but to also get out-of-work people back to work.”

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