Suncor awarded a contract for their Firebag 3 site to Flint Energy Services.
Flint will employ 200 people to help with field construction, as well as pre-commissioning and commissioning support.
Suncor plans to have Firebag 3 producing 68,000 barrels a day by mid-2011.

Another oil sands player could be operating near McMurray in the future.
Grizzly Oil Sands, based out of Calgary, sent in an application for the Algar Lake project to Alberta Envirmonment and the Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board
The plan includes two phases and will cost a total of 240 million.
They hope the site will have a capacity of around 11,300 barrels a day.

Housing starts are expected to improve throughout the Prairie provinces over the next 2 years, including in the Wood Buffalo region.

One of the reason for this is the increase in oil prices and the overall improvement of the economy.

Wood Buffalo is expected to have 1300 housing starts in 2010

Even though the economy is improving, the Bank of Canada has decided now is not the time to raise interest rates.
    It's worried that such a move could trigger inflationary pressures.
    The level of economic activity in Canada has been slightly higher than the bank had projected in January.
    Rates will remain at the historically low level of one-quarter of one per cent until at least July.
    C-I-B-C economist Avery Shenfeld is predicting a three-quarter per cent increase in time for summer.

Syncrude will not be building a massive upgrader.
Canadian Oilsands Trust, which is the controlling partner of Syncrude feels it makes more sense to sell the bitumen before it's processed.
Other companies like Imperial Oil have also decided it makes more sense to have bitumen processed outside of the country.