Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image – Page 133

As natural gas prices collapse, producers pin hopes on Asia – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – April 12, 2012)

April 12, 2012

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

For natural gas producers in Western Canada, these are the best of times and the worst of times.

On the bright side, the opening of a new export market for liquefied gas from the British Columbia coast is so close they can smell it. A consortium led by Royal Dutch Shell PLC seemed close Wednesday to a go-ahead decision on a $12.35-billion gas liquefaction terminal in Kitimat, while another proposed LNG project secured a federal export permit. The developments provide solid support for the takeoff of an LNG industry that promises richer prices for Canadian gas from Asian consumers, a reason to develop massive shale gas deposits that are now stranded, and fuel merger and acquisition activity.

But a dark side is also haunting the consortium. North American gas prices sank below US$2 per million British thermal units in New York Wednesday, the lowest point in a decade and far below what it costs to produce it, threatening gas producers’ ability to survive long enough to capture the pot of gold on the other side of the Pacific.

According to a report in the Tokyo-based Nikkei business daily Wednesday, Shell and partners Mitsubishi Corp., China National Petroleum Corp. and Korea Gas Corp. are close to completing terms on a project to start shipping gas around 2020 at an annual rate of 12 million tonnes.

Reality lost in big pipeline debate – by Diane Francis (National Post – April 7, 2012)

April 10, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper

Talk recently about the possibility of Chinese workers building a pipeline through British Columbia threatens the project’s future more than does any statements by First Nations leaders, Robert Redford, Greens or New Democrats.

It’s also an indication that the private sector does not get it. The pipeline will only be built if Albertans, British Columbians and B.C. First Nations make a deal.

This must be an Alberta-B.C. negotiation. This is not about the federal government or regulators. And there’s no room for foreigners or those financed by them such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club or groups that are fronts from rival oil producers in Venezuela, Saudi Arabia or Russia. It’s apparent to me that some opaque “environmental groups” don’t disclose their donors or real agendas and have targeted Canada’s oil sands. I have written about ending foreign intervention in the regulatory process and foreigners are being excluded. This is not about what companies and their foreign customers want to do. Here is the playbook for a deal:

1. A pipeline through B.C.’s pristine territory must be built and operated with a minimum of environmental impact. The pipeline should be buried, have sensors all along and lands post-construction should be returned to their original state.

Bashing Western Canada, once again – by Conrad Black (National Post – Apr 7, 2012)

April 10, 2012

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper

One of the points I was trying to make in last week’s column, in general support of Pierre Trudeau’s efforts to make both official languages present in all parts of the country, was that in any federal state, some concessions to particular regional concerns are necessary or the country will fall apart, or even atomize. In a little over a century, this fate has split Norway from Sweden, Singapore from Malaysia, Bangladesh from Pakistan, the Czechs from the Slovaks and, most painfully, the Sudanese and South Sudanese.

This was what made the Quebec separatist threat so dangerous; though there was never much prospect of heavy violence, there was a danger of the permanent diminution of the country after a prolonged and immobilizing constitutional crisis. Of course, the separatist leaders greatly and treacherously underestimated the complexities and problems of any such step, and aggravated the problem with trick referendum questions about seeking authority to negotiate sovereignty and association with Canada: Simultaneously to eat and retain the same rich cake.

My fear in those days was that the federal Progressive Conservative leaders, Robert Stanfield and Joe Clark, were men of such goodwill, but such limited familiarity with the devious Quebec nationalists and with the French language, that they could not win the federalist argument in Quebec. Trudeau thus emerged as the temporarily indispensable horse for that race.

All’s not lost, Ontario. The future is green, not black – by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Globe and Mail – April 7, 2012)

April 10, 2012

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.

Thomas Homer-Dixon is director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation and CIGI Chair of Global Systems at the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ont.

Ontario, we’re told, is Canada’s new rust belt. The high dollar is pummelling the province’s exports. Big manufacturers are fleeing. The Liberal government is slashing spending to maintain the province’s credit rating. And to top it off, it’s wasting money promoting green energy. There’s just one problem with this pop wisdom: It’s largely nonsense.

Ontario certainly faces huge challenges. Its main trading partner – the United States – is only now emerging from the economic doldrums that followed the 2008-09 financial crisis. And since that crisis, the world economy has been struggling with depressed consumer demand, wary investors and aggressive deleveraging by households, businesses and governments.

Ontario wasn’t ready for this new reality. From the early 1990s to the mid-2000s, a weak loonie made Ontario’s products artificially competitive outside Canada, so companies deferred investment in new factories and technologies.

Home And Native Land – by Cooper Langford (Financial Post Magazine – April 2012)

April 10, 2012

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

In many respects, the city of Kitimat is an iconic Canadian community. Situated in a wide, flat valley at the head of the Douglas Channel in northwestern B.C., it has, for the past 60 years, been home to one of the world’s great hydroelectric and aluminum smelting projects. A technological marvel when it was built by the Aluminum Company of Canada during the industrial boom that followed the Second World War, the project brought the modern world to a resource-rich wilderness and became the foundation of a prosperous frontier city.

More recent history, however, has been less kind to the Kitimat region. Technological advances mean the smelter, now owned by global mining giant Rio Tinto, no longer employs as many people as it once did. The businesses — methane, ammonia and paper — that followed it into the deep reaches of the province are no more. Kitimat is a community looking to re-stake its claim on the future. And there is a new prospect on the horizon: Calgary-based Enbridge has identified the community as the terminus for its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline project to ship bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands to the Pacific coast and, potentially, new markets in Asia.

Northern Gateway — if it goes ahead — will be a groundbreaking project in its own right, a 21st century statement of Canada’s role as a global energy supplier. But getting to that point is far from certain. Whatever technological and business innovation it may represent, the pipeline has become the centre of an iconic debate.

Fidel Castro attacks Stephen Harper over environmental damage from oilsands [and Canadian mining] – by Oakland Ross (Toronto Star – April 10, 2012)

April 10, 2012

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Canada may be Cuba’s leading source of tourists, an important economic partner, and one of just two countries in the region never to have broken off diplomatic ties with the island — the other is Mexico — but Fidel Castro says he doesn’t even know Stephen Harper’s name.

In a column that appeared Monday in Granma, official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, the island’s former ruler says he believes the Prime Minister goes by the name Stephen Harper — but it’s hard to be sure. In other words, Stephen Who?

Devoting his 1,100-word column almost entirely to Canada and its alleged shortcomings, Castro, 85, finds much to criticize and lament about this “beautiful and extensive country.” Are we a colony, a republic, or a kingdom? According to the man with the famous beard, we apparently don’t know ourselves — and neither does he.

Worst of all, however, is the human and environmental damage that Castro says is being inflicted upon many Latin American countries by rapacious Canadian mining companies.

Stephen Harper’s Illusions [including Castro’s thoughts about Canadian oilsands and miners] – by Fidel Castro (Cuban News Agency – April 8, 2012)

April 10, 2012

http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/principalingles.htm

I think –and I do not intend to offend anyone- that this is how the Prime Minister of Canada is called. I deduced it from a statement published on “Holy Wednesday” by a spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry of that country. The United Nations Organization membership is made up by almost 200 States –allegedly independent States. They continuously change or are forced into change. Many of their representatives are honorable persons, friends of Cuba; but it is impossible to remember the specifics about each
and every one of them.

During the second half of the twentieth century, I had the privilege of living through years of intensive erudition and I realized that Canadians, located in the northernmost region of this hemisphere, were always respectful towards our country. They invested in areas of their interest and traded with Cuba, but they did not interfere in the internal affairs of our State.

The revolutionary process that began on January 1st, 1959, did not introduce any measure that affected their interests, which were taken into account by the Revolution in maintaining normal and constructive relations with the authorities of that country where a significant effort was being made in the interest of its own development. Thus, they were not accomplices of the economic blockade, the war and the mercenary invasion that the United States launched against Cuba.

Fidel Castro blasts Harper over oilsands environmental impact [and Canadian miners] – by Mike Blanchfield (iPolitics.ca – April 9, 2012)

April 10, 2012

www.ipolitics.ca

Cuba’s former leader Fidel Castro is criticizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government for environmental damage caused by the extraction of crude from the Alberta oilsands.

The father of Cuba’s communist revolution of more than half a century ago offered the observation in a characteristically rambling new essay on the state of hemispheric affairs that was published over the weekend.

The ailing octogenarian handed the Cuban presidency to his brother, Raul, four years ago, but still periodically offers up his musings on the world in postings on his government’s website. “Stephen Harper’s Illusions” is his latest instalment.

In it, Castro claims that the United States — a country he loathes because of its economically crippling embargo — is forcing Canada to extract oil, which is causing irreparable damage to the environment.

A world awash in oil – by Lawrence Solomon (National Post – March 31, 2012)

March 31, 2012

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

Middle East will go back to being an obscure backwater

Today, the Middle East is in the news daily — we hear of strife in Syria, in Iran, in Israel and Palestine. Ten or 20 years from now, conflicts in the Middle East will count for less in the world’s scheme of things, just as the daily conflicts that now occur in Africa get short shrift, despite Africa’s far greater loss of life. Twenty years from now, the Middle East could be about as important as it was at the turn of the previous century — before its oil was discovered — which was not very important at all.

The Middle East will attract scant attention in future, not because the region will have run out of oil — it will have found much more — but because the rest of the world will also be awash in oil. As supplies increase, oil depreciates in price, as does the political value of its purveyors.

To see the future of oil, consider the present of natural gas. Until recently, many thought the West was running out of gas — most of the easily accessible natural gas finds were being depleted, making the West reliant on ever more distant, ever more difficult reserves to exploit. The U.S., the world’s biggest natural gas importer, began to build ports to receive liquefied natural gas from distant continents in the expectation that it couldn’t import enough from Canada and Mexico.

Why shortening review process is a good thing – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – March 31, 2012)

March 31, 2012

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

Ottawa’s decision to bring in a “one project, one review” regulatory process for major energy projects doesn’t sit well with environmental groups or First Nations, but it’s the right way to go. In fact, if there is a concern, it’s that it took too long to reform an unwieldy system that is benefiting no one – except those feeding off its paralysis.

Anyone who has sat through public hearings into high-profile projects knows issues, concerns and suggestions become repetitive within days. And yet a regulatory review of the Mackenzie gas pipeline took six years, while the panel now reviewing the Northern Gateway pipeline is patiently hearing from an unprecedented 4,000-plus people.

In its budget Thursday, the federal government said it plans to introduce legislation to impose a maximum 24-month limit for reviews, cap hearings by the National Energy Board at 18 months and standard environmental assessments at no more than 12 months.

China must improve its construction record – by Diane Francis (National Post – March 31, 2012)

March 31, 2012

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

Chinese companies should be banned from construction work in Canada because of their questionable track record here and around the world. It was shocking that Enbridge Inc.’s Pat Daniel said his company was willing to allow a Chinese company to buy a stake in and to bid for the construction of the proposed Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline.

Not only should Chinese companies be banned from construction or bidding but Investment Canada should ban them from buying resource companies or related assets.

China’s strategy is to buy resources around the world, then low-ball to get construction contracts by using Chinese laborers and materials. This is not only damaging to the domestic economy, and unnecessary, but in some cases laws and obligations have been flouted. Just for the record, my husband heads Canada’s largest infrastructure and construction public company in Canada.

Ottawa to eases pipeline rules in bid to boost oil exports to Asia – by Claudia Cattaneo and Peter Koven (National Post – March 30, 2012)

March 30, 2012

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

The federal government gave a boost to oil sands exports to Asia by streamlining the environmental review process and making it more difficult for environmental groups to mount an opposition.

In its budget brought down Thursday, Ottawa said it will propose legislation aimed at having “one project, one review” that establishes clear timelines for approval of big resource and industrial projects, reduces duplication and regulatory burdens, and focuses resources on the largest projects with the biggest environmental impacts.

Most of Canada’s oil is now exported to the United States, where it is heavily discounted because of pipeline bottlenecks.

Canadian governments and industry have been pushing for market diversification in Asia by way of new pipelines to the West Coast, but have run into opposition from the environmental movement and First Nations that are targeting regulatory reviews to delay the projects.

Ottawa betting on the West for economic prosperity – by Adam Radwanski (Globe and Mail – March 30, 2012)

March 30, 2012

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.

OTTAWA — With an increased focus on the resource sector that fits neatly with its efforts to shrink Ottawa’s footprint, the federal government is accelerating the westward shift of economic opportunity – at least for now.

Federal officials insisted on Thursday that helping mining and other developments by reducing the regulatory burden will have nationwide benefits – and will ultimately help Ontario rebuild its struggling economy. But in the short term, it’s oil-rich Alberta, and to a significant extent neighbouring British Columbia and Saskatchewan as well, that are celebrating.

Swift and positive responses from the Western provinces reflected that reality, with Alberta Premier Alison Redford taking a break from campaigning to enthuse that there’s “much good news” in the budget that will make her province even more competitive, and B.C. Finance Minister Kevin Falcon saying it “struck the balance between some modest spending discipline without going overboard.”

Ottawa clears hurdles to resource development – by Shawn McCarthy (Globe and Mail – March 30, 2012)

March 30, 2012

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.

OTTAWA— The Harper government is putting new muscle to its ambitious natural resource strategy, clearing away regulatory hurdles to drive Canada’s energy and mineral development and expand exports to Asia.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s budget Thursday included an announcement that the government is speeding up environmental reviews of major resource projects, including the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline that will bring oil sands bitumen to Kitimat, B.C., for export to Asia.

Ottawa is also stepping up its battle with oil industry opponents by ordering the Canada Revenue Agency to increase monitoring of environmental charities that engage in political advocacy, a move critics say is an attempt to cow activists into silence.

Mr. Flaherty said the government was responding to complaints that environmental groups may be abusing their charitable status, in part by accepting foreign donations for campaigns that oppose pipeline construction and oil sands development.

New risk spurs oil sands pipeline push – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – March 27, 2012)

March 28, 2012

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

If it feels like new oil sands pipeline plans are being pitched with a sense of urgency, it’s because they are.

There are two primary reasons. With the northern portion of the proposed Keystone XL and Northern Gateway stuck in controversy due to environmental and First Nations opposition, and pipeline capacity out of Alberta expected to fill up in three years, oil companies are putting pressure on pipeline operators to come up with new options so production from places like the oil sands is not stranded or heavily discounted.

And, as tough as it is to get these projects off the ground, what’s also unfolding is a battle between pipeline companies as North American oil production rebounds.

The flurry of moves and counter-moves shows there’s a battle “between a couple of very large gladiators for market share in the oil transportation market in North America,” said Mike Tims, chairman of the Calgary-based investment dealer, Peters & Co., referring to Enbridge Inc. and TransCanada Corp.