Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image – Page 137

Alberta’s flushing its resource miracle down the drain – by Jeffrey Simpson (Globe and Mail – February 10, 2012)

February 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.

The census confirmed what everyone knew: The population is growing faster in Western Canada than elsewhere. The issue for the fastest-growing provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, is what to do with the challenges of growth. Their populations are expanding, pure and simple, because of natural resources, notably oil (mostly from the tar sands), natural gas and potash.

There are long-term development issues swirling around the nature of their economies. Are they going to be classic rentier economies, extracting resources and shipping them? Or are they going to try to process more of the resources at home? Thus far, the answer has been the former.

With more people come demands for a necessary expansion of public services: schools, serviced land, police, roads and, of course, health. Outside Alberta, for example, people hear about right-wing politics, the populist Wildrose Alliance (quietly supported by many federal Conservative MPs), the perpetually governing Conservatives, low taxes, small government.

Canada loses in oil discount – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – February 10, 2012)

February 10, 2012

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

The widening discounts dragging down the price of Canadian oil are providing a glimpse at what the future looks like if new pipelines like Keystone XL aren’t built.

The discounts were adding up this week to about $30 to $40 for a Canadian oil sands barrel relative to the price it would have fetched in world markets.

It’s the outcome of rising production from Canada’s oil sands and the Bakken tight oil field in North Dakota and too little pipeline space to move it to refiners, causing oil to be backed up in the U.S. Midwest.

The surprise is that existing pipelines are filling up well before the 2015/1016 time frame, when they were widely expected expected to hit their capacity.

“We are at the wrong end of multiple discounts,” said Mike Tims, chairman of Peters & Co., the Calgary-based energy investment dealer.

LNG hubs to make strange bedfellows – by Claudia Cattaneo (February 8, 2012)

February 8, 2012

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

As plans to build a natural gas liquefaction (LNG) hub on the British Columbia coast move closer to reality this year, the market is buzzing with talk of new partnerships and takeovers involving Western Canadian gas producers, potentially sweeping up big names like Encana Corp.

The trend has the makings of the next big thing and could shake up the natural gas sector in Western Canada, where prices are languishing at disastrous levels and cash-strapped producers are motivated to make deals.

Oil majors like Royal Dutch Shell Group PLC and national oil companies like Malaysia’s Petronas are evaluating as many as five plans to build terminals in the Kitimat area to export LNG to Asian markets and will need to secure supplies to keep them full.

So far, they have secured about 17.8 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of resources in Western Canada, but will need 39 tcf to meet current plans, CIBC World Markets estimates in a recent report.

Mixed messages – by Peter Foster (National Post – February 8, 2012)

February 8, 2012

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

The Keystone killers are waiting to ambush the Northern Gateway

This week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper went to Beijing to deliver a message to the U.S. , while Alberta Energy Minister Ted Morton came to Toronto to speak to B.C. Mr. Morton faced the tougher sell, which he attempted to soften, but further confused, by throwing “national energy strategy” into the pot.

The Chinese are gung-ho for Canadian oil, as are most Americans. However, Ontario’s Premier Dalton McGuinty has installed an expensive policy based on weaning the province off “dirty” oil to save the planet. As for B.C., it is at least as green but more crucial to the market diversification plans of Edmonton and Ottawa because no Alberta oil can reach China — or any non-U.S. market — that doesn’t pass through the province.

Opposition to a new trans-B.C. pipeline, Northern Gateway, is significantly related to the success of environmental NGOs in mounting a global campaign of demonization and disinformation against the oil sands. That campaign forced President Obama to kill/delay the $7-billion Keystone XL line, sponsored by TransCanada Corp., to ship up to 830,000 barrels of oil — mostly from the oil sands — to the Gulf Coast.

Canada doesn’t know how to protect its [resource] interests [from China] – by Terry Glavin (Ottawa Citizen – February 4 2012)

February 6, 2012

This column is from the: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/index.html

“We are sitting ducks.”

That’s the way Anthony Campbell, the former head of the Intelligence Assessment Secretariat of the Privy Council Office, put it to me the other day. We were talking about Beijing’s designs on Canada’s energy resources, Beijing’s adroit cunning in enfeebling Canadian foreign policy, and how Canadians have been rendered unable to cope with the drama as it unfolds.

The Chinese Year of the Dragon began inauspiciously with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Industry Minister Joe Oliver riffing on a clever talking-points stratagem dreamed up by neophyte Conservative war-room hangabouts. It featured American billionaire socialists infiltrating into Canada to ambuscade the construction of Canada’s last-hope economic lifeline, to China.

Most Canadians had probably never even heard of the Enbridge project, which is a plan to build a huge bitumen tube from Alberta’s oilsands to saltwater on the northern British Columbia coast. Still, whatever Ottawa was shouting about, it seemed to contain enough resemblance to a kernel of truth. So it worked for a while.

China faces hurdles in [Canadian] oil patch – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – February 4, 2012)

February 4, 2012

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

Thanks to acquisitions in the last few months, the three top state-controlled Chinese oil companies have become full participants in the Canadian oil and gas scene and are in control of projects in a Western industrialized economy for the first time.

But being in control doesn’t guarantee success. Now that they are in charge of their Canadian operations, Chinese players are facing the same hurdles as other foreign acquirers to make them work – plus a few more due to cultural differences.

“They are still on a learning curve. The jury is out on how they are going to manage those companies,” said Gordon Houlden, a former senior Canadian diplomat in China who is the director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta.

Political will not enough to fuel new oil sands refineries – by John Ivison (National Post – February 3, 2012)

February 3, 2012

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

Top of the agenda for Stephen Harper when he visits Beijing next week will be the sale of Canada’s crude oil to China. The Conservative government’s enthusiasm for exporting this country’s raw resources has come under fire for perpetuating our reputation as hewers of wood and drawers of water.

New Democrats, such as leadership candidate Brian Topp, have called for raw bitumen from Canada’s oil sands to be processed at home before being sent south to the United States or to Asia.

“Canada is throwing away its economic future when we anchor our economy, our currency and our public revenues on the export of raw, unprocessed resources that can be processed here,” he said.

It is an argument that has supporters across the political spectrum. Former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed has added his voice to calls for oil sands bitumen to be refined in Alberta.

Why Republican voters are up in arms over Keystone XL – by David Weigel (National Post – February 1, 2012)

February 1, 2012

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

THE VILLAGES, Fla. — Newt Gingrich’s schedule, 72 hours before the Florida primary, went like this: church, parking lot of a retirement mega-city, church. His only speech of the day is here, in a grove of tidy homes and souped-up golf carts. As the Villagers stand, or sit in their chairs, or stay in their carts to sip Arizona Iced Tea or frappes, Gingrich explains why Barack Obama is failing them.

“He recently vetoed the Keystone pipeline,” says Gingrich. Boo! Boo! Boo!

“Now, think about it! He did it to appease left-wing environmental extremists in San Francisco.” “Ugh,” mutters a retiree near the press riser. Gingrich laid on the scares with a trowel; an ugh was the least he could do.

“Think about what would come of this,” Gingrich continues. “Here was an opportunity to have oil come from Canada through the United States, to the largest petrochemical complex in the world, in Houston.

Our peak oil premium – by Thomas Homer-Dixon (Globe and Mail – February 1, 2012)

February 1, 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.

Peak oil – it’s history, right? Everything has changed so fast.

Two years ago, the world was facing an intractable oil crisis. “By 2012, surplus oil production capacity could entirely disappear,” the U.S. Defence Department declared in a major report. “A severe energy crunch is inevitable without a massive expansion of production and refining capacity.”

But now we’re told that the world is awash in oil. Deepwater production from the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Brazil is soaring. New “elephant” fields have been discovered off Ghana and possibly Angola. Meanwhile, hydrofracking technology is liberating hundreds of thousands of barrels a day from “tight” shale oil formations in North Dakota and Texas, with more coming on line from Colorado, Wyoming and even Ohio.

Shale gas the place to be – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – January 31, 2012)

January 31, 2012

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

The Obama administration’s endorsement last week of shale gas as a major pillar of its made-in-America energy vision ensures a long-term future for the resource.

The big question is: How does the North American sector survive today’s depressed market environment so it can deliver the 600,000 jobs and the economic stimulus expected from shale gas development?

For companies like Calgary-based Encana Corp., one of the top shale gas producers in the U.S., it comes down to short-term pain for long-term gain. “You will see less and less drilling for a period of time,” Eric Marsh, executive vice-president, natural gas economy and senior vice president, USA division, said in an interview.

Alberta Cree official admits dilemma over Gateway as Edmonton hearings begin – by Trish Audette (National Post – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

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

Edmonton — The lead community-industry liaison for the Enoch Cree First Nation finds herself in a “bind” when it comes to the controversial Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline proposal.

“We were known as the caretakers of the land . . . if you’re going to take something from the land, give something back,” Leigh Ann Ward said Tuesday at hearings of National the Energy Board-Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency panel in Edmonton. “There is a need for (the pipeline), but what are the environmental impacts?”

At the same time, Ward is interested in the economic benefits of the proposed pipeline, which would carry Alberta bitumen to port in Kitimat, B.C., where it would be loaded aboard Asia-bound tankers.

“We want it to go ahead because this will ensure employment for our band members,” she said, noting as many as 24 members are already trained to work on pipeline construction. “The benefits are really, really high.”

Scrutinizing Canada’s pipeline to Beijing – by Terry Glavin (National Post – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

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

Canada is at the brink of a radical shift in energy and foreign policy. But there has been no debate of any consequence about it — not in the House of Commons, not in the Senate, not in the proceedings of a Royal Commission. Certainly not in the news media.

Here’s what you’ve been missing.

Ostensibly, it’s about the Enbridge project, a plan to pump condensate eastward from the coast to Alberta so that Alberta bitumen can be made fluid enough to be pumped back to the coast at Kitimat — then put into oil tankers to be sent down Douglas Channel and out into the roaring North Pacific, eventually landing in California and Asia.

As recently as last fall, John Bruk, the founding president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada and as fervent a booster of trade with China as you’ll meet, was cheering Stephen Harper and wishing him all the best with his trade engagements in the Forbidden City.

Sweeten the deal for mining companies in Ring of Fire: Bisson – by By Ron Grech (Timmins Daily Press – January 30, 2012)

January 30, 2012

The Daily Press is the city of Timmins broadsheet newspaper

NDP seeks support from Liberals

The New Democrats are suggesting the province use a carrot instead of a stick to convince chromite mining companies operating in the Ring of Fire to do all their processing in Ontario.

The NDP will ask the government to cover infrastructure costs as an incentive. “The Ontario government has got to respond by providing infrastructure to the site, namely hydro and transportation, which are critical to making it work,” said MPP Gilles Bisson (NDP — Timmins-James Bay).

Bisson is working with other member of the NDP caucus to put together an incentive package which they intend to pitch to the governing Liberal Party within the next couple of weeks.

The package would include an offer to develop transportation to the site in the form of railway or roads, as well as offer an industrial energy rate in the form of about four cents or less per kilowatt hour.

The [resource] race to China – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – January 28, 2012)

January 28, 2012

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

KITIMAT, B.C. — In a climate of growing hostility toward energy industry development across North America, Timothy Wall, president of the Canadian unit of Houston-based Apache Corp., took the road less travelled to the heart of Kitimat.

He flew multiple times to the 9,000-resident town on the northern British Columbia coast to ensure support for his liquefied natural gas plans. He unleashed a team to explain the challenges and the benefits.

He won over the local aboriginals, the Haisla Nation, by meeting with them, acknowledging their rights, making them his landlords. “We had a big push … trying to make this a win-win for everybody,” Mr. Wall, who is originally from Houston, said in an interview.

“We told the stakeholders in the Kitimat area that there would be challenges, but that we would work through them. That with everybody pulling in the right way, we would get there.”

The two-year effort paid off with widespread community support for Apache’s plan to pipe natural gas from fields at the other end of the Rockies, build a terminal down the canal in Bish Cove to liquefy it, and transport it by tanker to Asia.

Obama loves oil — Not! – by Peter Foster (National Post – January 27, 2012)

January 27, 2012

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

Nothing more clearly indicates U.S. President Barack Obama’s economic muddledom and ideological stubbornness than the dog’s breakfast of energy policies revealed in Tuesday’s State of the Union address. The good news is that hydrocarbons are back (as long as you forget Keystone XL). The bad news is that “clean” energy isn’t going away. Instead it’s “all of the above.”

Without his nose growing visibly, the President claimed the government was behind the technological advances that led to the current shale gas boom, and even suggested that he might take credit for the rise in domestic oil production. In fact, Mr. Obama’s administration has hampered and castigated oil companies at every turn. In the light of the hysterical grandstanding over the BP Gulf spill (whose impact proved to be greatly exaggerated), it was ironic indeed to hear the President now declare a great opening up of offshore exploration.

The industry has responded to attacks by becoming more innovative and productive. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, between 2007 and 2010, U.S. oil production grew from 5.1 million barrels a day (mbd) to 5.5 mbd. The agency predicts domestic production will hit 6.7 mbd by 2020, helping take imports down to 36% of domestic usage in 2035 from 60% in 2005. So much for peak oil.