”Oil and gas production in Western Canada turns on a dime,” said Bill Richards, the Manitoba lawyer who, as its president, made Dome Petroleum a mega company in the 1980s.
The summer of 2016 is shaping up to be one of those dimes that oil and gas turns on.
Bill Richards died in 2008, and as a business leader he had the optimism normally associated with geologists.
He used that sunny view of the world to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for his company's ventures and conduct mergers and acquisitions involving billions in assets before numbers starting with “b” were fashionable.
The New York Times called Dome the company that glows, and Richards and his partner Jack Gallagher ignited the glow.
These days leading oil and gas executives are more cautious and greyer than Richards and Gallagher.
They are also more optimistic than four months ago, capable of glowing too.
Capable of turning on a dime from hard times to better times.
In July Kevin Neveu, the CEO of Precision Drilling said he is sensing optimism among his clients – the oil and gas producing companies who hire Neveu's rigs at the beginning of the job creation change.
Bold words from the chief executive of a company that leads the roller-coaster and is subject to the most stomach-churning G-forces on the ride.
In July Birchcliff Energy paid $625 million in cash to buy 54,200 acres of oil and gas rights and 26,000 barrels of oil-equivalent per day production in the Montney gas shale.
Birchcliff, Tourmaline Oil Corp., Seven Generations Energy, Peyto Exploration and Development and Arc Resources are leading a natural gas boom enriching companies who have cut costs below the price for gas, weak as it is, and can make modest profits.
The stock markets are modestly rewarding their shareholders.
They have even figured out how to produce shale gas in the Montney play at a small profit.
This is more an oil and gas economic plateau than an oil and gas boom, but if it creates jobs again, it will be welcome news.
- Frank Dabbs is a veteran energy and political journalist, author of four biographies about Canadian leaders and the editor of six other books about business and oil and gas leaders.
"The summer of 2016 is shaping up to be one of those dimes that oil and gas turns on."
