Quote:
Originally Posted by Helladog
WRT the refinery, i think it's just politics; a whole load of nothing to be concerned about.
If the Irvings do decide to get out of the oil business, they should shut it all down, sell for scrap, and reclaim the land to it's original glory. It's not going to be in business forever anyway.
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Arthur is 94 and unwell. This is succession planning. The refinery is their big money maker. People lament fossil fuels are on the decline, however Irving is taking a bigger share of a slowly shrinking market. Just look at Atlantic Canada - there were 4 refineries now it’s only Irving. They supply the fuel to 900 stations in Quebec, Atlantic Canada and New England / New York State in addition to hundreds of other branded stations. They survived because they plowed money into annual maintenance whereas other refineries beholden to shareholders were not maintained and became obsolete and too expensive to bring up to standard. In the next 25 years I think the refinery in Levi, QC will be at risk as Canada will probably only need 4 refineries to meet demand. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the options they are exploring is selling their downstream business to couche tard / Circle K and transitioning to green energy production like wind, solar, hydrogen production on a larger scale, maybe batteries. They have some very smart people working at HQ and their lab at Golden Ball whose only job is to plot the future of the company in the new green environment of next 60 years. Despite the badmouthing they constantly get, they really do care about the communities they operate in and I wouldn’t be surprised if units were sold off that it would be baked into the sale agreement the requirement to maintain units/employees in Saint John. Worse case if they needed to shed hundreds of HQ jobs - they would fill a seemingly insurmountable need for workers at JDI and others to replace retirees. When I talk to business owners they all have same problem - they can’t get workers and their business can’t grow much.