Oil Sands

To say that the manufacturers and fabricators in Alberta that support the oilsands industry were hit hard by the recession of fall 2008 and 2009 is a drastic understatement. New projects and expansions were suspended or shelved, contracts evaporated and people lost their jobs. But, as staff writer R.P. Stastny recently uncovered, these companies are seeing better times — albeit more in patches of contracts than waves of work. Only a few of the shops around Alberta are nearing their pre-recession workloads, while others continue to hobble under 32-hour workweeks and acres of unused capacity.