Oil Patch- Natural Gas Fueling Economy

Wednesday, December 28, 2005 12:17 PM

While the Prince George region may only get a sniff of it, gas royalties in B.C. are expected to rise by 1 billion dollars over last year.

One Prince George businessman says he recently wrote $100,000 dollars worth of business in Ft. St. John and is expecting to do more. He added "If we got rid of those four concrete overpasses between here and the Fort, we could move heavy equipment into the Peace Region along Highway 97 North and stop the flow of a lot of heavy traffic coming through Alberta to reach BC. "

In 2004 the province received $1.439 billion dollars in royalties from the oil patch, that figure is expected to grow to $2.449 billion this year.

As for what effect the exploration in the Peace Region is having on that area's economy think of this:
-per square foot, the Wal Mart in Ft. St. John has been labeled the number one store for sales in Canada,
-the Ft St John McDonald’s is number two in BC for dollar sales
-and the Wendy’s there is number one for sales in BC.

Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Wednesday, December 28, 2005 12:17 PM in News by 250 News

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: Chester on December 28 2005 6:07 PM

Ask our MLA's about our highway to the north?

Ask them why heavy equipment can't come down to our area of the province from the north?

I would like to suggest that they weren't aware of the problem until it was raised in PG recently at a round table discussion of Small Business people. Chester

Posted by: owl on December 28 2005 8:17 PM

"Ask them why heavy equipment can't come down to our area of the province from the north?"

???? ....

I would assume it is because of the same reason it can't go from here North .... something to do with 4 concrete overpasses between here and "the Peace" .....

I wonder if someone could provide some more information here. What is the problem? overhead clearance of railway bridges crossing the highway or capacity of highway overpasses over railway tracks?

Can the machinery be broken down into two or three components to ship it?

If money were spent to fix the infrastructure what guarantee would there be that machinery would be purchased in BC?

Is someone bitchin' because they keep loosing bids?

Posted by: owl on December 28 2005 8:23 PM

THE McDonald's ???????

In that case, build another one and it will no longer be number two ......

PG used to have similar statistics .....

Even as recetnly as the building of Cosco I recall we were doing better in total sales than a Calgary one which had been built about the same time. And I think the local store was the biggest in BC or even in Canada at the time it was built. And it was supposedly doing better in total sales for some time than the Calgary outlet .....

Of course, now there is more competition, so it would no longer be doing as well, I would think.

These are phases communities go through. Let us just say that Ft. St. John has a lot of growing to do to ever reach the kind of expansion RATE PG had in the 60's.

Communities simply cannot continue at those types of rates for very long.

Posted by: Mike on December 28 2005 9:47 PM

yeah but we're still number one in fine particulate. Let's see em try to follow that!