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Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

OPINION:The oil sands have a future, and it includes polluter pays – Editorial (Globe and Mail – September 8, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

A central tenet of industrial development is the polluter-pays principle: Those who profit must pay for the mess generated by pulling resources from the ground or turning raw materials into goods. If you want to own the upside, you’ve got to own the downside.

This principle is widely agreed upon, yet through decades of development, everyone knows it has not always been the rule. There are many examples. Take the Giant Mine, near Yellowknife.

It was one of Canada’s oldest gold mines, but after trading through various corporate hands numerous times, the last owner went bust and left behind 237,000 tonnes of arsenic trioxide. Giant is part of a $2.2-billion taxpayer-funded cleanup of eight abandoned northern mines that will take 15 years.

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Beijing May Be More Addicted to Coal Than Oil – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – September 5, 2020)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg Opinion) — There’s one surprise entrant in the group of oil companies announcing plans this year for how they’ll reduce emissions: PetroChina Co.

China’s oil companies, unlike their peers in the U.S. and particularly Europe, don’t traditionally treat climate targets as a major issue. Beijing, after all, isn’t even promising to hit its emissions peak until 2030.

The large fund managers that have been pressuring Western oil companies to improve their carbon commitments don’t make much difference, either. PetroChina’s chairman, Dai Houliang, is a Communist bureaucrat whose more significant job is party secretary of state-owned parent China National Petroleum Corp.

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First Nations don’t oppose energy projects – by Gregory John (Financial Post – August 26, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

Overwhelming majority in support of responsible, sustainable development on their lands

Many people would have us believe Indigenous North Americans are unanimous in their opposition to oil and gas development. Canada has seen a steady stream of protesters travelling from the United States who cite “helping protect Indigenous lands” as their motivation for interfering with oil and gas development projects in this country.

Yet Indigenous people in Canada are far from homogeneous. In Canada there are 633 First Nations, plus the Métis people and the Inuit. In the U.S., there are another 574 Native-American groups.

Nowhere else on the planet would such a diverse group of peoples be expected to be unanimous about anything. The anti-resource development stereotype is false.

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Do any Liberals still support Canadian resources? – by Brad Wall (National Post – August 25, 2020)

https://nationalpost.com/

If properly supported, Canada’s resource sector and Canadian agriculture will be leaders in the recovery

Were there an official committee of the federal cabinet constituted of those members who were fiscally conservative, economy-focused and supported the Canadian resource sector, they might only need an e-bike built for two to accommodate in-person meetings.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino may be one of them and, hope against hope, the new finance minister may take the other seat.

Only after watching her approach to trade and, more recently, Western alienation, did I come to this view.

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Alberta’s GDP will be hardest hit in 2020, expected to drop by 11.3 per cent: Conference Board of Canada report – by Dustin Cook (Edmonton Journal – August 24, 2020)

https://edmontonjournal.com/

Alberta’s economy will be the hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic nationally this year, with the province’s GDP expected to plunge by 11.3 per cent, the Conference Board of Canada projects.

The province has been dealt a double whammy between the pandemic and the sharp decline in oil prices, with both taking a toll on the economy, states a provincial outlook report released by the research firm Monday morning.

But chief economist Pedro Antunes said not all is grim. Alberta is expected to have the largest GDP expansion across the country in 2021, with an estimated increase of 7.9 per cent as economic activity rebounds and global oil demand rises.

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I’m an Indigenous woman who works in Alberta’s oil sands – and I can speak for myself – by Estella Pederson (Globe and Mail – August 15, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Estella Pederson is a member of Cowessess First Nation. She currently resides and works in Fort McMurray.

To hear it from oil sands critics, politicians and activists, Indigenous people in the oil sands are a contradiction. Surely, they cannot exist. Or if they do, they are surely victims of a predatory resource industry, or are colonized sellouts. So I thought I’d share my own story.

I’m an Ojibwe woman. Life was very hard growing up. I was brought up in an abusive environment, and my family was mostly dependent on government assistance for income.

I ran away from home several times as a teenager to escape this lifestyle. I did complete high school although there were only a handful of other Indigenous students in my graduating class. Most of my Indigenous peers quit at middle school.

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OPINION: Lashing out at critics won’t revive Alberta’s oil sands. What’s needed is action – Editorial Board (Globe and Mail – August 13, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Jason Kenney sat down with The Globe and Mail’s editorial board for a wide-ranging session shortly after he was elected Premier of Alberta last year. When asked about some international investors starting to shun the oil sands, Mr. Kenney declared it was a passing fad, the “flavour of the day.” It’s been a long day.

The oil sands have become a global climate-change lightning rod, the bitumen of northeastern Alberta called the “tar sands” and branded the dirtiest oil anywhere. The image is unfair, but it has become a reality that Alberta and Canada must address.

It seemed less pressing in years past, when it was only a few Hollywood stars helicoptering aghast over oil sands mines.

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Stop the regulatory pancaking – by Robert Lyman (Financial Post – July 28, 2020)

https://financialpost.com/

New regulations will only stall billion-dollar energy and transportation projects at precisely the time when economic stimulus is most needed

This month the federal government published new guidelines governing the environmental assessment of the climate effects of certain major projects, including all pipelines, electricity transmission lines, mines and metal mills, nuclear facilities, oil and gas production projects, hydro plants, airports and ports.

The guidelines prescribe how project proponents and the Canadian Impact Assessment Agency are to conduct a “strategic assessment of climate change.”

As a result, proponents will face a daunting set of information and process requirements at each phase of the impact assessment. Projects with a lifetime likely to extend beyond 2050 must provide a plan describing how they will achieve “net-zero emissions” by 2050.

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OPINION: Environmentalists’ new tack signals even more difficult era for pipelines – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – July 10, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Environmentalists have taken a new, and clever, tack in their war against the hydrocarbon economy. As well as going after the companies that pump oil and natural gas, they are going after the companies that transport those products – the pipelines.

And they’re winning. In the past week, three big pipeline projects have taken severe blows.

On Monday, a U.S. federal judge ruled that the Dakota Access Pipeline, which had been in operation and was taking oil from North Dakota to Illinois, must shut down while a new environmental review is conducted. Construction of the pipeline, which is partly owned by Canada’s Enbridge, was fiercely opposed by Native American groups.

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OPINION: U.S. ruling on Dakota Access shows pipeline battles are never really over – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – July 7, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

It took a whole weekend to see the very real risks that still lurk for the Keystone XL oil pipeline in its epic quest for approval in the United States.

A U.S. judge’s decision on Monday to rescind the permit for another contentious pipeline shows that even having a project up and running is no guarantee that it is immune from legal challenges. Alberta taxpayers have to keep this in mind now that they are on the hook for US$1.1-billion of Keystone XL, which faces its own battle in the courts.

On Friday, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney travelled to the small eastern Alberta town of Oyen to announce the start of construction of the Canadian portion of the pipeline and to proclaim that his government will “leave no stone unturned” in its efforts to see the project overcome its U.S. legal hurdles and get built.

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Supreme Court rejects Indigenous groups’ appeal to halt Trans Mountain expansion – by Emma Graney (Globe and Mail – July 3, 2020)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Three British Columbia Indigenous groups have vowed to keep fighting the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion after they were dealt a major legal blow on Thursday, when the Supreme Court of Canada decided it would not hear their appeal of the project’s approval.

The groups said the top court’s decision – posted on the Supreme Court website without further detail – threatens not just their traditional lands but the very fabric of reconciliation in Canada.

The Coldwater Indian Band, Squamish Nation and Tsleil-Waututh Nation sought leave to appeal in April, after the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that cabinet’s approval of the pipeline project in June, 2019, was reasonable under the law.

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Want richer First Nations? Say ‘yes’ to pipelines – by Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan (Financial Post – July 2, 2020)

https://business.financialpost.com/

Mark Milke is executive director of research and Lennie Kaplan chief research analyst at the Canadian Energy Centre, an Alberta government corporation funded in part by taxes paid by industry on carbon emissions.

According to the 2016 census, 380,000 Indigenous Canadians live on reserve, many of them far from the economic opportunities that cities provide.

Given concerns about economic conditions on many reserves, one of this era‘s most pressing policy problems is how to provide economic opportunity to First Nations far from urban centres.

One answer: Allow the natural resource economy on or near First Nations to flourish. A perfect example is underway in British Columbia, with the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

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More than ever, Canada needs a national infrastructure corridor – by Ted Morton (Calgary Herald – June 27, 2020)

https://calgaryherald.com/

“But today that prosperity is at risk. Five years of anti-energy,
anti-western and anti-growth policies from the Trudeau Liberals
have decimated Alberta’s economy.”

This month marks the 90th anniversary of the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement, the constitutional reform that created the economic foundation for the dynamic and prosperous Alberta of the past six decades.

Alberta and Saskatchewan achieved provincial status in 1905, but NOT on equal terms. Ownership of Crown (public) lands and natural resources were not granted to the two new provinces.

This was a radical departure from the practice in the rest of Canada, under which all other provinces did control their own natural resources. We were officially second-class provinces.

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‘An absolute boom’ for Alberta: Is plastic fantastic again in the age of coronavirus? – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – May 13, 2020)

https://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY — Fears of coronavirus contagion and depressed commodity prices have gutted much of Alberta’s economy but there is one sector experiencing a surge: the province’s petrochemical sector, which produces a range of plastic inputs used in medical devices and packaging of everyday goods.

“Demand so far has been steady. While we have seen some cancelled orders, we are experiencing increased demand for many grades of polyethylene to meet the needs of essential businesses, especially food packaging, e-commerce and medical packaging,” NOVA Chemicals Corp.’s senior vice-president John Thayer said in an emailed statement to the Financial Post.

Thayer said the Calgary-based company, which is owned by UAE’s sovereign wealth fund Mubadala Investment Company, is operating its facilities in Canada at full capacity.

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The post-pandemic fallout threatens to reverse a decade of energy security gains – by Peter Tertzakian (Financial Post – May 20, 2020)

https://business.financialpost.com/

On Monday U.S. President Trump tweeted that “OIL (ENERGY) IS BACK!!!!” He’s right: oil is no longer being given away for free. Benchmark prices have clawed their way above US$30-a-barrel for the first time since early April. But few would be convinced that THE NORTH AMERICAN OIL INDUSTRY IS BACK!!!!

The devastating effects of the pandemic — forced production shut-ins could put Canada and the United States on a regressive path toward dependency on “foreign oil,” a historically disparaging term.

Let’s flip the calendar back to 2008 or so. The United States had sent about 150,000 troops to Iraq, where the post-Saddam-Hussein war was still raging. America was “addicted to oil” as President George W. Bush had proclaimed. At the high point of U.S. dependency, in 2008, about two-thirds of that addiction was fed by imported oil. Excessive dependency on foreign oil was also costly.

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