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It is tempting for the oil czar of a major producing jurisdiction to tower over his government colleagues and dominate the industry he oversees.
But Ken Hughes, Alberta’s energy minister, is no Ali Naimi, the market-moving oil minister of Saudi Arabia, nor is he Rafael Ramirez, the Hugo Chavez loyalist who doubles as Venezuela’s energy minister and CEO of the national oil company. Nor does he aspire to be.
Appointed four months ago by Alberta Premier Alison Redford to manage a resource endowment rivaling that of his Saudi and Venezuelan counterparts, Mr. Hughes is an amicable former entrepreneur focused on ensuring Alberta’s energy house is in good working order and the conditions competitive.
Meanwhile, others are sweating the big issues – environmental opposition to new oil sands export pipelines to the U.S. and Asia, tension with British Columbia over the division of energy benefits, Chinese takeovers in the oil sands.
“I welcome engagement by others,” Mr. Hughes said in an interview this week at McDougall Centre, the province’s historic building in Calgary. “We are the trustees for the largest asset with oil and gas potential in North America and Alberta is the driver for much of the North America economy. There are plenty of issues that we have here, including ensuring that we get the right balance between environmental concerns, social policy concerns and the development of our resources.”
Indeed, Alberta’s energy agenda has grown so much — Murray Smith, the Alberta energy minister a decade ago, spent much of his time trying to convince global investors and pundits that Alberta had a lot of oil — that political leadership over energy has spread far and wide.
Joe Oliver, the federal natural resources minister, has been circling the globe promoting Canadian oil and gas, while doing the heavy lifting to defend the oil sands’ reputation from attacks by environmental groups.
Ms. Redford is leading the discussion on the need for a Canadian energy strategy. Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other federal ministers are digging into the debate over foreign ownership, recently re-ignited by CNOOC Ltd.’s bid for Nexen Inc. which is under federal review.
That doesn’t mean Mr. Hughes doesn’t have strong views.
• On increasing foreign ownership of Canada’s oil and gas resources: “Since the Dingman No. 1 (discovery) in Turner Valley in 1914, we have never had enough money, or human capital, to develop the energy industry that we have here in Alberta. As a result, we have had ebbs and flows of capital and players … At one time there was concern about American investment. But over time people recognized that the free flow of capital is an important aspect of the competitive playing field. We have to recognize first of all that there is already substantial investment in the oil sands and that any one investor is unlikely to have adominant position.”
For the rest of this article, please go to the National Post website: http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/28/albertas-new-oil-czar-ushers-in-era-of-constructive-engagement/