By Paul Morden, from www.theobserver.ca The Observer
Chemical Valley service companies already drumming up new customers in the western oil patch are now working to capture a piece of the billions of dollars in capital spending planned for Canada’s Atlantic coast.
Three members of the Sarnia-Lambton Industrial Alliance travelled this summer to a Halifax conference of representatives of southeastern U.S. states and Eastern Canadian provinces to promote Sarnia-Lambton’s industrial fabricators, machine shops, engineering firms and environmental service companies.
“There’s definitely some opportunities out there,” said Dave Hill, vice-president of LamSar Industrial Contractors and a member of the alliance delegation.
The visit “put us on the map” with those Canadian and U.S. regions, Hill said.
“We got to rub shoulders with some influential politicians, and people working hard making alliances within the economic community, across Canada and those states.”
This was the alliance’s first approach to potential customers on the East coast and it came home with “some major leads,” Hill said.
The $100 billion in new capital spending proposed in the Maritimes includes offshore oil developments, ship building and large hydro-electric projects, said David Moody, an official with the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership working with the alliance.
The group of approximately 40 Sarnia-Lambton companies formed in recent years to seek work from outside the region to pick up the slack caused by a slowdown in business from Chemical Valley.
The alliance has hosted delegations from the oil sands and sent its members to Alberta to make contacts with industries, particularly those looking for companies to fabricate industrial modules used in the building of plants in the oil sands.
Members of the alliance are expected to travel to Calgary in November for an oil industry conference.
“We’d like to be able to say all the shops are full and we’re bursting at the seems, but that’s not the case as of yet,” Moody said.
“But, good progress has been made. There are some contracts that have been gained and more that hopefully we’ll see in the near future.”
Moody said contacts in western Canada pointed out to the alliance that there are also opportunities in the east where large oil projects are planned or underway.
While shipping large industrial modules to the western oil sands can be a challenge, the seaway makes customers on the east coast easier to reach, Moody said.
The alliance is currently seeking government funding for the second phase of a study aimed at creating a permanent land route to haul oversized industrial modules from Sarnia-Lambton’s fabrication shops to the St. Clair River where they can be loaded on ships.
The first phase of the study estimated creating the corridor would cost $3.5-million.
Moody said the next phase of the study is expected to cost $200,000 or more and will attempt to verify that business opportunities exist to justify the cost of a permanent corridor.
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