I’ve discussed at length the migration of industrial occupiers and capital investment into the Alberta market over the past 18 months due to the convergence of peak levels of demand, affordable development land, available warehouse space and unsustainable pricing in other major Canadian markets. As an industrial real estate broker, I get asked frequently if I’m seeing any slowdown in the industrial market due to increasing interest rates, inflation and lingering supply chain struggles. I’ll outline here why these local and global issues are having a much diluted effect on Alberta.

It’s easy to get bogged down in the negative news surrounding delayed pipelines, figurative and literal roadblocks, and absentee governance, but behind the veil, there are some outstanding developments, projects and innovations that are taking place all across Alberta.

As it stands, Alberta’s prospects of delivering oil to tide water are grim, if not non-existent. Following the calamitous finale of the Energy East pipeline, and the mismanagement of the western Trans Mountain Pipeline, it seems that our one-customer energy policy could remain in effect indefinitely.  But what if there was one more option to consider that could present significantly less inter-provincial conflict, potentially reduced cost outlays, plus economic opportunity for a struggling provincial economy.  Would it not be worth investigating?

With 243,000 kilometres of coastline, Canada boasts the longest coastline in the world. Due to the nature of the sea ice in our northern territories, the majority of the northern coastline is untouched by human intervention and ship traffic. Due to the nature of our politics, the majority of our functional coastline in Eastern and more so, Western Canada, is blocked from viable tanker traffic. The rest of the world is aggressively trading with each other, and we’re being left in the dust.

Canadian oil and gas production has long since become the scapegoat of the modern energy contradiction.  That is, many around the world are demanding a switch to green, renewable energy, calling for a complete elimination of the oil and gas industry, yet the data shows that global fuel usage from oil continues to grow year after year. 

Did you know that in the past eight years since 2010, USA has built the equivalent of ten Keystone pipelines?  Meanwhile, we're facing daily protests and delays for the Trans Mountain pipeline, a 980 km (610 mile) expansion project.

The question facing energy companies today is where best to invest their capital to get their product to market.  Should they be investing to build upgraders and refineries here in Alberta to convert bitumen into diesel and gas products locally, or should they continue investing in pipelines to ship heavy product to other markets like Texas where these refineries already exist?

The Butterfly Effect perpetuates that "something as small as the flutter of a butterfly's wing can ultimately cause a typhoon half way around the world" - Chaos Theory.  Although the oil & gas market is more of a behemoth than a butterfly, the trends that it maps out have an enormous ripple effect on nearly all other industries, especially in our "diversified" province of Alberta.  See my latest video where I discuss this effect here...

The Alberta Government hosts a website called majorprojects.alberta.ca that outlines the inventory of all private and public sector projects across the province that are valued at $5 Million and greater.  Have a read here to see what's going on in Alberta.