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By Greg Quinn, Erik Hertzberg and Robert Tuttle

Before crude prices crashed in 2014, it wasn’t unusual to see groups of boisterous, beer-drinking rig workers in the Edmonton International Airport’s departure lounge waiting to board the red-eye flight home to Canada’s east coast from jobs in northern Alberta.

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While there’s less exuberance nowadays, the midnight ”Oil-Patch Express” still operates. A recent visit by a Bloomberg reporter to the same departures lounge found a more mixed set of passengers that included young couples, some retirees and even parents with a young daughter scampering around in pink pajamas.

Still, oil workers were in the majority. One of them, Kent Austin, 40, is glad to be working again after being laid off last year. “It’s quite a severe impact — 10 months sitting around doing nothing,” he said. The welding inspector on contract to Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp. was non-committal when asked if there’s a broader recovery underway. “I hope so,” Austin said.

Gary Miller was more upbeat. The 53-year-old pipe fitter fresh off a 14-day job at a Suncor Energy Inc. tank farm said he’s seen two or three major oil-patch projects “on again.” He pointed to the cyclical nature of the work. “There’s some slowdowns. That’s the way it is in natural resources. Mid-2018, things will be busy again.”