Canada’s Oil Capital Turns to Amazon and Airlines to Make Up for Price Plunge
ByEfforts to diversify Calgary’s economy beyond hydrocarbons are starting to work.
Mark Craig didn’t worry much when oil plunged from $100 a barrel to less than $50 in late 2014. Having worked in the Canadian oil industry since high school, the Calgary resident had seen booms and busts before. His confidence seemed justified when, just months after taking a buyout at British oil giant BP Plc, he was hired to manage the IT department at Calgary-based Penn West Petroleum in April 2015. Then, four months later, Penn West cut half its staff, including Craig, in the midst of an accounting scandal. Oil had just begun to take another leg down, ultimately bottoming below $30 a barrel, and no one in the city that’s the epicenter of Canada’s oil and gas industry was hiring. Two years later, no one is hiring still. “After Penn West, I realized there were basically no jobs out there,” says Craig, 56. “It was a very harsh reality that slapped me in the face.”…
Canada’s Oil Capital Turns to Amazon and Airlines to Make Up for Price Plunge
