Canadian Media Resource Articles

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Iran’s return to the oil market could trigger a “positive supply shock,” sending oil prices plunging by as much as US$20 per barrel, although Saudi Arabia will probably move swiftly to ensure a softer, $10-drop in crude prices.

Increasingly crippling sanctions imposed by Western countries to punish Tehran for pursuing a nuclear program has limited Iran’s ability to export its primary production over the past few years.

But in recent weeks, both Tehran and Washington have replaced their sabre rattling with a softer tone, raising hopes of a diplomatic solution, especially as the Iranian government hopes to resolve the nuclear dispute within three to six months.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was to meet Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif on Thursday in what is billed as the first direct contact between the U.S. and Iran in six years. Foreign ministers from the U.K., China, France, Germany and Russia also were to join in the discussion.

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

NEW YORK — Prime Minister Stephen Harper warned that Canada would not take no for an answer from the United States on the Keystone XL pipeline and declared that political calculations were the only obstacle blocking the project.

In pointed remarks to an audience in New York, Mr. Harper asserted that the arguments in favour of the proposed pipeline were “overwhelming” and vowed to continue his campaign to win approval for the project until it succeeds.

“My view is that you don’t take no for an answer,” Mr. Harper said. “We haven’t had that [from the U.S.], but if we were to get that, that won’t be final. This won’t be final until it’s approved and we will keep pushing forward.”

Mr. Harper didn’t spell out what Canada would do if Keystone were rebuffed, but did point to demand for Canadian energy around the world and to proposals for eastern and western pipelines. “If I were an American the last thing I would want to see is Canada selling its oil anywhere else.”

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The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

CALGARY — Newfoundland’s government is touting a major offshore discovery as the start of a new chapter in the province’s oil industry, and a reason for international energy companies to consider investments there.

Statoil ASA of Norway said Thursday its discovery in the Flemish Pass Basin, called Bay du Nord, could hold 300 million to 600 million barrels of light oil. The upper end of that range would be Newfoundland’s third-largest discovery. Statoil’s partner in the project is Calgary-based Husky Energy Inc.

Bay du Nord represents the partners’ third oil discovery in that area. The find is in deeper North Atlantic water and farther off the coast from the Jeanne d’Arc Basin, where the Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose fields produce, and the $14-billion Hebron field is under development.

“That’s good news for us and it certainly will encourage increased offshore exploratory activity. It’s one of the largest offshore oil fields to be discovered off Canada,” Tom Marshall, Newfoundland’s Natural Resources Minister, said in an interview.

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The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

A major topic loomed large during Tuesday’s first official visit to Canada by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe: building a long-term energy relationship for the benefit of both.

It’s well known that energy-poor Japan has been eyeing Western Canada’s abundant natural gas deposits as a new energy source, particularly since the Fukushima disaster in 2011 shut down its nuclear industry, and that Canada is equally motivated to sell energy to Japan as a way to diversify its energy markets away from the United States.

The big hurdle to what could be a union made in heaven is price: Japan is struggling to pay the premium prices for imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) that are prevailing in Asia, partly due to its own increased demand since Fukushima, and is bargaining hard for a new energy deal with Canada that it can afford.

While contracts are ultimately the domain of the market, Abe told reporters in Ottawa the two countries agreed to co-operate more closely on natural gas and praised Canada as a stable source that can provide natural gas at competitive prices. Showing it means business, Japan Inc. has moved en masse to Canada over the past two years to sweeten the relationship through investment.

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http://www.vancouversun.com/index.html

While the federal and B.C. governments are pushing hard to open up Canada’s liquefied natural gas reserves for export to Asia, local municipalities are raising concerns about the impacts the dramatically rapid developments will have on them.

Whether it is the pressure on local policing, health care and community resources that pop-up boom towns will have on neighbouring cities to the impact on infrastructure such as roads and sewers, municipalities in the northern half of B.C. are tepidly raising a caution flag at this week’s Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention.

“We’re not saying we don’t want the economic investments. We do,” said Oliver Ray, executive director of the North Central Local Government Association. “But with investment in LNG will come some heavy pressures on our municipalities, and we’re worried about the impact that can have on us.”

A third of the association’s 30 resolutions to the UBCM deal with concerns over the impacts caused by rapid resource development. The association represents all local governments in the northern half of B.C., including more than 400,000 residents.

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