It’s not just the big exploration and production companies that see opportunities in Alberta’s bounty of bitumen. Energy service companies providing industrial camp accommodations believe the oil sands will bolster their bottom lines for years to come as well.
Calgary-based Black Diamond Group Ltd.’s Sunday Creek Lodge is a prime example. The company acquired the lease to the site in 2009 and began transforming it to meet the needs of the 21st century oil sands worker. The latest round of improvements to the worker camp in the oil sands region of northeast Alberta will cost approximately $20 million. The renovations will bring the camp’s capacity to 1,160 beds. “What’s driving that opportunity in the oil sands is those massive projects require a large workforce,” says Mike Klukus, vice-president of Black Diamond’s camp division. “Every one of those guys needs a bed to sleep in.”
To help fund the complex’s expansion, and the company’s growing camp division, Black Diamond raised $55 million in July to boost the capital spending budget for 2012 to $125 million. The lion’s share of the capital, says Klukus, will be allocated to camps – one of four company divisions – since 59 per cent of the company’s revenue came from the camp division in 2011. The public company earned $241 million in revenue that year, an increase of 226 per cent since 2009. Through the first quarter of 2012, the company earned $59 million in revenue, a five per cent increase from the first quarter of 2011.
Across Canada, Black Diamond has a fleet of 11,000 beds. While roughly 80 per cent of the capacity is split evenly between oil development in northeastern Alberta and gas development in northeastern British Columbia., other resource developments are providing opportunities. “Not only are some of the current projects we’re doing mining-based, whether it’s potash in Saskatchewan or metals in B.C., a lot of stuff is in the hopper for coal and metal work as well,” Klukus says. “Mining has a lot of momentum right now.”
To get into new markets, Black Diamond doesn’t always look to acquire land and build a camp. Sunday Creek is the only lodge in Alberta where Black Diamond owns and operates the lease. The company also builds and services lodging on a producer’s site or supplies “turnkey” accommodations that clients can set up on a lease and service with in-house staff. “The full turnkey solutions will become a bigger part of our business,” Klukus says.
A home away from home
Private washrooms. Satellite television in every room. Restaurant-quality food. This ain’t your grandpa’s oilfield camp
- Sunday Creek Lodge has three different gyms on site. The facilities have televisions and high-end equipment. One unexpected challenge, Klukus says, is keeping up with requests for heavier dumbbells.
- Giant theater rooms used to be common in the rec area, so workers could watch movies or sporting events. With satellite televisions in every room, the rec area at Sunday Creek now focuses on activities.Space has been created for pool-, foos- and poker tables.
- The dining area is no longer a series of mudrooms with plastic stackable chairs, under industrial lighting, connected to the kitchen. The open dining area has large windows, post and beam decor, wall sconces, two-tone paint, laminate tables with wood edges and cloth chairs. “It’s a very high-end look and feel,” Klukus says.
- Corridors connect the dormitories to the dining area and recreational facilities, so lodgers can wander the complex without putting on their coats and boots to slog through mud every time they leave a building. “Guys come into a big mudroom at the entrance and hang up their clothes,” Klukus says. “Then they can go have dinner in their socks or slippers, go down to the gym or shoot a game of pool.”
Illustration Remie Geoffroi
Renovations at Sunday Creek Lodge will increase the bed count by 116, but increasing capacity has been secondary to improving amenities for oilfield workers. The camp was first built southwest of Christina Lake in the 1960s to accommodate workers in the remote areas surrounding Fort McMurray. Black Diamond has been renovating the facilities on the 40-acre site ever since acquiring it in 2009.
“It comes down to not only an evolution of the product, but demand for workforce,” Klukus says. “If you’re in competition with the guy down the street who’s also building a facility, the worker has the choice of where they want to go, and so you want to be able to provide a nice home away from home.”
In the last 10 years, oilfield worker camps have undergone a massive facelift. Trevor Haynes, president and CEO of Black Diamond, estimates the square footage of a standard room has increased by 25 to 50 per cent. While all the improvements are important, the real key to happy camp life is through a worker’s stomach. “The food has to be good; that’s the first thing that sets the mood at camp,” Klukus says. “You can have the nicest facility, but if the food is crap the guys won’t stay.”
