Industry turnarounds help fuel Sarnia economy: conference

This year’s Petrochem Canada conference is about a lifeblood of the Sarnia economy.

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Presentations at the two-day industry gathering opening Tuesday at the Progressive Auto Sales Arena will focus on maintenance turnaround and shutdowns, and other topics for plant managers and staff.

The Sarnia area is home to thousands of construction tradespeople and Canada’s second-largest cluster of refineries and petrochemical production plants which regularly employ them during scheduled temporary shutdowns for maintenance and repairs.

“It’s huge investments in each of those facilities,” said Shauna Carr, of the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership, a conference advisory board member.

“The consistent maintenance and turnover dollars are in the hundreds of millions every single year,” she said. “It’s a lot, a lot of money these companies are investing in their facilities here.”

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That’s along with less-frequent investments in new plants, like Nova Chemicals’ recently completed, more than $2-billion project to build a new polyethylene production plant on Rokeby Line in St. Clair Township and expand production at its Corunna site next door.

Carr said she often encourages local industries to share information with the public about their investments in maintenance turnarounds, and also works to ensure governments know about them.

“Even if there’s not a brand new project. . . This is still a lot of dollars these folks are pumping into the Ontario and the Sarnia-Lambton economy,” Carr said.

“We need to remind the decision-makers that, ‘Yes, we’re here and, yes, we’re good at what we do,’ ” she said.

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The Sarnia area has received some “bad press” recently, Carr said.

Aamjiwnaang First Nation, next to Sarnia, raised the alarm this spring about elevated benzene air emissions readings, leading to action by provincial and federal environment ministries and word this week Ineos Styrolution would permanently close its Sarnia styrene production site.

“The reality is, we are held to very high standards and we are striving at all our facilities to make sure we can hit them,” Carr said.

Demand for construction trades in the Sarnia area is expected to continue in the years ahead, she said.

As industries move to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, “these facilities are looking at different ways of doing things – they’re looking at different opportunities in the bioeconomy,” Carr said.

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“We’re still going to need going to need all of those highly skilled trades folks” to ensure facilities are built and maintained, she said.

The Petrochem Canada conference has been held in Sarnia since 2017 after initially alternating between Sarnia and Alberta.

The conference typically attracts about 200 participants, plus a “huge exhibit” of industry vendors and service companies, Carr said.

Previous conferences focused on the business direction of petrochemical and emerging energy industries.

“This year we’re actually looking at shutdowns and maintenance turnarounds, best practices, networking,” Carr said. “Instead of the top decision makers that we historically attract, we’re looking for the boots on the ground, super-smart engineering folks who make these projects happen.”

Attendees include industry representatives from outside the Sarnia area, who are offered a guided driving tour of local industry.

“It reminds folks that we’re here and this is a big part of the Ontario economy,” Carr said.

Jets taking off from Toronto’s Pearson International Airport run on fuel made in the Sarnia area and “more than half of the folks driving in Toronto are driving with Sarnia gas,” she said.

Conference registration is free. For details, see petrochemcanada.com.

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