About 450 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, in the regional municipality of Wood Buffalo and close to the Saskatchewan border, there is a once-small town called Fort McMurray, a booming city that has become one of the largest contributors to Alberta's booming oil industry.

Built on what is believed to be the largest oil reserve outside of Saudi Arabia, Fort McMurray is home to vast oil sands that contain a sticky, black substance called bitumen—which, under the right process, can be refined into oil.

in fort mcmurray there is 30km square of these oil sands. oil companies from around the globe are still scrambling to get their share. they set up plants worth billions of dollars.

the welders they hire make around $120 cdn more or less. the workers at mcdonalds close to fort mcmurray start at $13 an hour for cripes sake! mcdolands employese elsewhere start around $7 more or less! if you stay with them as a welder for 10 days you get $12,000.00.

i know this because welders quit from the place i work at and went down to fort mcmurray. the only downside is its impossible to find a house, never mind an affordable house.

have you heard about this place? does anyone you know work there? im curiuse because one of my cousins is working down there at the moment.

[edit on 7-5-2006 by worksoftplayhard]

Yes I know someone up there and he's loving it. He sent me pictures of those huge vessels that they were transporting up there not too long ago for processing the oil sands. He told me the salaries are quite good and hes making great money.


Pie

Originally posted by ThePieMaN
Yes I know someone up there and he's loving it. He sent me pictures of those huge vessels that they were transporting up there not too long ago for processing the oil sands. He told me the salaries are quite good and hes making great money.


Pie

whats does the person you know work as up there? does he live there too? your friend is very lucky.

I also have a friend that went to work there are a general laborer. He is making over $600.00 per day. Awesome money, wish I didn't have any kids still at home.

Originally posted by worksoftplayhard
whats does the person you know work as up there? does he live there too? your friend is very lucky.

I believe he is a Surveyor. They give him a trailer that he lives in at the various sites he has to go to. He loves it. They send him to all these different locations for months at a time.

Pie

We had some family friends whe worked for Bechtel in the 60's at Ft McMurray. Probably nothing new going on, just a resurgence in the tar sands with the current oil prices. Good for the local economy, as much of that cash gets spend locally. Sounds about the same as the Alaska pipeline back in the late 70's...HIGH wages for everything, but high costs to go with it. I boomed jobs like this much of my life. Kind of glad to be out of it now...

[edit on 7-5-2006 by BoomerD]

Originally posted by BoomerDKind of glad to be out of it now...

your glad to not be making huge money? your glad to be working slave rates? have it your way but when my time comes, im gonna work all day at mcmurray and make in one week what you make in one month.

[edit on 13-5-2006 by worksoftplayhard]

I was just talking to a friend of mine in Edm. yesterday and she was telling me that because it is so expensive to live in Ft McMurray, they are starting to bus people in to work there.

My cousin used to work there until he had a work-related accident involving explosives.

I live in Edmonton and Fort Mac is a nuthouse....Dope, crime, whores...its out of control and the Mounties turn a blind eye to it. There really is no controling it, however if you want to get rich and have just 1 skill you can do extreemly well for yourself. The housing is compareable to London England in terms of costs. A 30' trailer 15 min. outside of town will run you around 200K CD, about 190K USD and if you have hopes of a single family 3 bedroom 2.5 bath, half finished basement near a school, supermarket ect. well over 600K and its going up everyday and with interest rates set to go up 2 more times before October its going to be impossible. Property taxes are nearly out of reach as well. Living and working in Fort Mac is relative to living and working in Edmonton. We here have as much but If you want to make a real go of it, live here and bus or make the drive up there. More and more fellas are doing that now. Its a great place for a young single guy to earn 30 years wages in 10 and then get out way ahead of the rest of the pack. I know a few young guys in their earily 20's who own brand new houses, new diesel trucks, boats, all the toys but they live in Edmonton and stay off the dope.

If your looking for something to do with yourself, look into it

[edit on 18-5-2006 by Census]

In case your interested...

I live in Fort McMurray and am a Heavy Equipment Technician. I make just over $46/hour. 6 days on, 6 off, 12 hour shifts. If I work on my 6 off its double time, yes, $92+/hour. Inluding bonuses I made over $130k last year and thats without overtime.

Housing is well above the national average. I puchased a 26 year old house last year for $650k. And yes, I get bussed to work daily (and get paid to do so). Many people choose to commute from southern cities or even out of province. This is only because of a preference to live elsewhere because when you consider the fact that they still have to rent a place when in town during their work cycle, it does not offest what it would cost to buy a home in McMurray.

There are many employment opportunities but be aware...if you plan on coming here be sure to have a game plan or you'll have a hard time trying to make ends meet. Many new hires I've worked with over the years have struggled to stay afloat even with the high rate of pay.

As for crime (drugs, violence, etc.), this town is not the lawless town that some people, mostly those who do not live here, try to portray.

Hope this helped,
Take care!

No-one has mentioned that there are camp jobs up there where you are paid to live in camp and all your food, etc, is provided. These 'camps' are very large, with their own airports and economy. People fly in and out from all over Canada.

There are a couple of BIG projects rolling into play there, one of them is projected to cost 5 Billion dollars and they are talking about another 25,000 jobs in that area. Yeesh!

We could have a few sites like this in the US if our politicians would stop playing the political game and pass a few bills.

I live in Edmonton but make the 5 hour drive to work in Fort McMurray as a land surveyor. My shift is a 14 day on/7 day off rotation. I live a camp too (in camp right now, actually) so all my food and everything is free. This camp I'm at right now has great food, good satellite TV, fast internet and AC in your room, a nice gym, a bar and a games room. It pretty much has everything...I enjoy living here. Another good thing about camp is that you don't spend any money. Once you enter camp it's like pressing pause on your bank account. If I have any pressing banking matters, I just use online banking or phone the bank during the day.

The money is the best part, though. I'm in my early 20's and making ~$130,000/year. It's nice to have no debt, or to not worry about making payments and buying pretty much whatever I want (although I save or invest most of it). I figure freedom 35 is within reach if I keep this up and the economy up here stays hot.

My advice to people looking to cash in: don't move to Fort McMurray. Make some other place in Alberta or Canada your base of operations. Try to get in with a company that'll put you up in camp and offer good compensation for travel expenses. Mine are almost nil, since driving my car to Fort McMurray and back only costs me around $90 so that's even more money in the bank for me - which makes the Edmonton Metro area an attractive candidate for you seekers out there.

So... after read all the post and making a result.... is recomended working in F.Mcmurray and leave the family in Edmonton for example? I know that mcmurray is too expensive and the difficult to get house. I´m not a Canadian and I have a job offer like Heavy equipment technician. Please someone can give me an advise???

I wanna take the opportunnity!!

Hi, I am a female and looking to gain employment in the oil sands as a general laborour. I would prefer to live in the camps. Any suggestions where to start looking or what questions to ask the potential employers? Any information would be appreciated.

Originally posted by Anonymous ATS
So... after read all the post and making a result.... is recomended working in F.Mcmurray and leave the family in Edmonton for example? I know that mcmurray is too expensive and the difficult to get house. I´m not a Canadian and I have a job offer like Heavy equipment technician. Please someone can give me an advise???

I wanna take the opportunnity!!

Yeah best to leave the family in Edmonton. I moved from Fort Mac in 05 because it was just getting too crazy, I couldn't afford a house, and didn't want my kids growing up there.

If you are young and can sacrifice 5 years of your life, in my opinion, it is worth it. You come out of there with alot of experience, and alot of money. The thing is you have to watch to not get sucked into the lifestyle, if you want to have any money left. Up there you very quickly become house poor, or truck poor (you have a house or a truck, but nothing else).

The really stupid thing about up there is the lowest paid professions are those that have actually got an education. Engineers are low paid, as are computer people.