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Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image

Liberal net-zero agenda is a plan to kill the economy – by Chris Sankey (National Post – November 13, 2023)

https://nationalpost.com/

Chris Sankey is a former elected Councilor for Lax Kw’alaams Band, businessman and Senior Fellow for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

The federal government is pushing an aggressive emissions reduction strategy that could devastate the Canadian economy and threaten our way of life. This isn’t just about the oil and gas industry. Port-related industries, transportation, infrastructure, health and education, and countless other sectors will be collateral damage. As will the standard of living of everyday Canadians.

And, yet, it isn’t even clear the government’s green agenda will do much of anything to lower emissions. I recently had a chance to listen to Adam Waterous, the CEO of the Waterous Energy Fund and former Global Head of Investment Banking at Scotia Waterous. He is, I may add, an incredibly intelligent businessman who lives and breathes energy.

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Ottawa unveils interim plan for environment agency after court rules it unconstitutional – by Jeffrey Jones (Globe and Mail – October 26, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Ottawa is suspending the environment minister’s authority to force major energy or mining projects to be judged for environmental impact as part of a temporary operating plan for the Impact Assessment Agency after the Supreme Court ruled it encroached on provincial jurisdiction.

Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault announced a series of provisions for the agency that will be in force until the government makes amendments to the Impact Assessment Act. The interim operating plan is aimed at making sure projects now in the process of seeking approvals will have “have an orderly and clear path forward,” he said in a statement.

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Chasing Big Mergers, Oil Executives Dismiss Peak Oil Concerns – by Clifford Krauss (New York Times – October 25, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Exxon Mobil and Chevron are spending tens of billions of dollars buying oil and gas assets, betting that the International Energy Agency’s predictions of declining oil demand are wrong.

Exxon Mobil and Chevron, the two largest U.S. oil companies, this month committed to spending more than $50 billion each to buy smaller companies in deals that would let them produce more oil and natural gas for decades to come.

But a day after Chevron announced its acquisition, the International Energy Agency released an exhaustive report concluding that demand for oil, gas and other fossil fuels would peak by 2030 as sales of electric cars and use of renewable energy surged. The disconnect between what oil companies and many energy experts think will happen in the coming years has never been quite this stark.

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TC Energy’s B.C. pipeline route bolstered by deal with Ksi Lisims LNG – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – October 20, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

An Indigenous-backed project seeking to export liquefied natural gas has signed a deal to support TC Energy Corp.’s pipeline plans in northern British Columbia, leaving Enbridge Inc.’s competing route in limbo.

The Nisga’a Nation, Western LNG and a group of natural gas producers called Rockies LNG are partners in their proposed Ksi Lisims LNG project near Gitlaxt’aamiks, which is home to the Nisga’a Lisims government led by elected president Eva Clayton.

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Canada court ruling on key environmental law risks deterring investments – by Nia Williams and Divya Rajagopal (Reuters – October 19, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

Oct 19 (Reuters) – A Canadian court ruling that voided most of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s environmental assessment law for resource projects has sparked fresh policy uncertainty and risks deterring investments, company and industry executives said.

Canada’s Supreme Court dealt Trudeau’s Liberal government a blow last week when it ruled the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) was too broad in designating which major projects should fall under federal environmental assessment.

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Supreme Court’s ruling leaves resource companies uncertain of environmental regulations on projects – by Naill McGee, Emma Graney and Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – October 14, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled Friday that Ottawa has overstepped its constitutional authority in how it regulates major resource projects in Canada, throwing the sector into deep uncertainty as companies wait for clarity from the federal government in its legislative response.

Since 2019, Ottawa, under the Impact Assessment Act, has had broad authority to approve or deny large-scale mining, oil and gas and pipeline projects in Canada on environmental grounds. Alberta, which wants to see oil and gas projects approved at a faster clip, won a legal case in a provincial court in 2022, challenging the constitutionality of the act. That ruling was subsequently appealed by Ottawa to the Supreme Court.

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Supreme Court rules environmental impact legislation largely unconstitutional – by Joel Dryden (CBC News Calagary – October 13, 2023)

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/

Majority of top court agreed that act’s ‘designated projects’ scheme exceeds bounds of federal jurisdiction

Canada’s top court has delivered a highly anticipated judgment, writing in a majority opinion that Ottawa’s Impact Assessment Act (IAA) is largely unconstitutional. The IAA, previously known as Bill C-69, allows federal regulators to consider the potential environmental and social impacts of various resource and infrastructure projects. It was enacted in 2019.

The IAA has long been controversial among conservative politicians in Alberta, including former premier Jason Kenney, who frequently referred to it as the “no more pipelines act.”

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Fossil Fuels Aren’t Going Anywhere – by David Gelles (New York Times – October 12, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

Exxon’s $60 billion acquisition doubles down on oil and gas.

It wasn’t long ago that big fossil fuel companies were making bold claims about their plans to embrace a low-carbon future. Yet over the past year, many of those companies have walked back those commitments as they reaped outsize profits and made ambitious plans to expand their production of oil and gas.

On Wednesday, Exxon Mobil signed a $60 billion deal to buy Pioneer Natural Resources, a company that made its fortune through fracking. The acquisition — Exxon’s biggest in almost 25 years, and the biggest corporate purchase of 2023 — represents a very expensive bet that fossil fuels will remain a central part of the global economy for the foreseeable future.

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Canada could have been an energy superpower. Instead we became a bystander – by Heather Exner-Pirot (MacDonald Laurier.ca – October 3, 2023)

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Government has imposed a series of regulatory burdens on the energy industry, creating confusion, inefficiency, and expense

Oil arguably remains the most important commodity in the world today. It paved the way for the industrialization and globalization trends of the post-World War II era, a period that saw the fastest human population growth and largest reduction in extreme poverty ever. Its energy density, transportability, storability, and availability have made oil the world’s greatest source of energy, used in every corner of the globe.

There are geopolitical implications inherent in a commodity of such significance and volume. The contemporary histories of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq are intertwined with their roles as major oil producers, roles that they have used to advance their (often illiberal) interests on the world stage.

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[Alaska] Direct Payment Update: Americans in One State to Get $3,000 Check – by Jon Jackson (Newsweek.com – August 15, 2023)

https://www.newsweek.com/

Some residents of Alaska will soon receive payments of up to $3,284 as a result of oil and gas revenues from 2022. These residents will be paid from Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend. Revenue the state generates from its energy resources goes into the PFD. Created in 1976 to invest oil proceeds for future generations, the Permanent Fund is managed by a state-owned corporation.

Alaska began sending out 2022 payments from the state’s PFD last fall and recently disbursed a portion in July. The latest batch of residents to be paid are scheduled to receive their checks Thursday.

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Alaskans Receive Record Dividends of $3,284 – by Maryalene LaPonsie (Forbes Magazine – November 10, 2022)

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/

Alaska residents have been receiving annual dividend payments from the state’s Permanent Fund for 41 years, but the 2022 payout is one of the largest in history. Every resident received $3,284 this year, with most payments issued in September and October.

Permanent Fund Dividends (PFD), are larger than normal thanks in part to the addition of a $662 energy relief payment. Rather than send out a separate payment, as other states have done, Alaska rolled the energy relief payment into this year’s PFD payout.

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Brazil Gears Up To Become Fourth Largest Oil Producer – by Matthew Smith (Oil Price.com – June 12, 2023)

https://oilprice.com/

For nearly two decades, South America’s largest economy Brazil has been reaping a tremendous economic windfall from a massive oil boom that kicked off with the first offshore ultra deep-water pre-salt discovery in 2006.

The boom nearly collapsed as corruption, mismanagement and malfeasance saw national oil company Petrobras laden with so much debt it was almost forced to declare bankruptcy. Since then, industry reforms and rationalization coupled with higher oil prices had reinvigorated the massive fossil fuel boom underway in Brazil, although it nearly faltered for a brief moment when left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva assumed power.

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Group pulls out of Ottawa’s plan to sell Trans Mountain pipeline stakes to Indigenous owners – by Wendy Stueck (Globe and Mail – August 29, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

The federal government’s plan to sell at least part of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project to Indigenous owners has entered a new stage, with Ottawa indicating it’s prepared to provide financial backing to First Nations and Métis communities to help them acquire ownership stakes in the pipeline, and one group that had been pursuing a stake leaving the field.

In a recent letter to Indigenous groups, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa would support Indigenous communities with access to capital, meaning communities would not need to risk or use any of their own money to participate.

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Big Oil has failed in its promise to clean up their act. Here’s why – by David Olive (Toronto Star – August 24, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

Oil companies’ vows to reach net-zero by transitioning to renewables are long gone, writes David Olive, and profit maximization is back in.

Once upon a time, Big Oil pledged to reduce its fossil fuel production, slash its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), and invest more in clean renewable energy and less in oil and gas. Big Oil, including Calgary’s Suncor Energy Inc., the largest Canadian oil firm, also committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

That was in the late 2010s, when slumping oil prices prompted Big Oil to invest in what it expected to be lucrative clean-energy alternatives like wind and solar power, biofuels, and batteries.

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Ecuador Will Keep Some Oil in the Ground – by Manuela Andreoni and David Gelles (New York Times – August 22, 2023)

https://www.nytimes.com/

59 percent of voters sided with young activists in a referendum.

Ecuador voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to halt oil drilling in one of the most biodiverse places on earth. With almost all ballots counted, 59 percent of voters sided with the young activists who spent a decade fighting for the referendum, as we wrote last week.

It is widely considered to be the first time a country’s citizens voted decisively to leave oil in the ground. In a separate referendum, Ecuadoreans also voted to block mining in a biosphere reserve. “The answer from the Ecuadorean people suggests to us that the people are proposing a different way to live,” Monserrat Vásquez, an anti-mining activist, told reporters after the victory was announced.

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