Oil and Gas Sector-Politics and Image – Page 22

Oil prices drop as spreading coronavirus outbreak reduces demand for fuel – by Emma Graney (Globe and Mail – February 4, 2020)

February 4, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Crude oil prices fell to their lowest point in more than a year amid growing concerns that the coronavirus outbreak is weighing on the global economy and quickly sapping demand for fuel.

West Texas intermediate oil slumped to US$49.91 a barrel early Monday, the first drop below US$50 since January, 2019, and down sharply from levels above US$60 early this year. Prices for Brent crude, the international benchmark, have also fallen.

Demand for crude oil has quickly dropped as refineries in China curtail production to reflect lower requirements for fuel in the country. A broad shutdown of economic activity and travel in areas affected by the coronavirus outbreak means tens of millions of citizens are staying in their homes in a bid to slow the spread of the virus.

Teck mine approval could require Alberta to hit net-zero emissions by 2050 – by Vassy Kapelos (CBC News Politics – February 2, 2020)

February 3, 2020

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/

The federal cabinet is considering approving the Teck Frontier oilsands mine, but with a condition — that Alberta legislate an emissions cap requiring the province to hit net-zero emissions by 2050 — two sources close to the prime minister tell CBC News.

The Liberal cabinet must make a decision on the massive new oilsands project by the end of February, while facing pressure from environmentalists on one side and the Alberta government on the other.

The sources, who spoke on condition they not be named, told CBC News the Teck decision is more difficult than the government’s decision on the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, but cabinet is leaning toward a plan outlined by former natural resources minister Amarjeet Sohi in the Edmonton Journal last week.

CANADA: UN, Media Accused of Ignoring Indigenous Support for Pipelines – by Jason Unrau (The Epoche Times – January 29, 2020)

January 31, 2020

https://www.theepochtimes.com/

A U.N. committee’s recent call on the federal government to halt three major resource development projects in British Columbia continues to spark outrage among Indigenous leaders who are in favour of the projects.

The First Nations LNG Alliance has now issued an open letter to the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), saying its recommendations should “immediately be withdrawn” and an apology given to the 20 nations that support the Coastal GasLink pipeline, one of the three projects.

“The committee should have been aware that that 20 First Nations participated extensively during five years of consultation on the pipeline, and have successfully negotiated agreements with Coastal GasLink,” the letter stated, while accusing CERD of failing to do its research before taking a position.

Alberta to overhaul ‘flawed’ scheme that regulates old oil and gas infrastructure – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – January 31, 2020)

January 31, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY – The Alberta energy regulator will soon unveil sweeping changes to how it regulates its old oil and gas infrastructure, including a complete overhaul of an environmental liability rating scheme it now considers a “flawed system.”

In December, the AER stopped its longstanding practice of publishing liability management ratios (LMRs) for every oil and gas company operating in the province, which were used to measure the value of a company’s assets against its total deemed liabilities. The AER then limited companies with a low LMR score from buying assets that would add to their liabilities.

A full review of how the government and regulators handle oil and gas clean-up rules is years, if not decades, overdue, Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said in an interview with the Financial Post. She confirmed the province would be rolling out new policies by the end of the first quarter of 2020.

Pipeline dispute raises important question — who speaks for First Nations? – by John Ivison (National Post – January 31, 2020)

January 31, 2020

https://nationalpost.com/

Reconciliation means making one system compatible with another, not Indigenous law trumping Canadian law at the behest of some self-anointed aristocrats

The “territorial re-occupation” of land along the proposed Coastal GasLink pipeline in B.C. by hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en people has raised some thorny constitutional questions and some surprising interventions.

The $6.2 billion, 670 km pipeline route runs from Dawson Creek, near the Alberta border, to Kitimat in B.C.’s north coast region, crossing through traditional Wet’suwet’en territory.

The pipeline is supported by the five Wet’suwet’en bands, and their elected chiefs and councils. They point out the advantages for local communities – financial benefit agreements worth $338 million for the 20 bands along the route and contract work for indigenous businesses estimated at $620 million.

Infamous ‘War in the Woods’ in 1990s offers lesson for the Coastal Gaslink pipeline debate – by Cody Battershill (Financial Post – January 28, 2020)

January 29, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

“We hear of growing frustration among Canada’s Indigenous communities, who are tired of managing systemic poverty. They’re ready to turn to managing wealth, and to obtaining a safe, secure and sustainable future for their community members, particularly their youth….As Canada continues on a path toward reconciliation with its Indigenous communities, it makes sense that economic reconciliation, including genuine participation in resource projects, be a key part of the discussion.”

If you talk to participants of B.C.’s infamous “War in the Woods” forestry land-use debates of the 1990s, you quickly learn that virtually no one enjoyed the experience, no matter which side they supported. All these years later, each side can claim a handful of victories and plenty of defeats.

According to many of the participants I’ve spoken with over the years, a few First Nations leaders found the anti-forestry campaigns especially hurtful as their communities were pulled in — and then fractured — in large part by external campaign forces.

Back then it was the Forest Action Network (FAN) and a number of other early enviro-combatants that led the anti-resources charge over B.C.’s Great Bear Rainforest. FAN became adept at finding divisions within First Nations communities, identifying roles for dissatisfied hereditary leaders and then elevating them before international media, often to the detriment of elected councillors and the Indigenous community at large.

‘Unprecedented’ Supreme Court decision on Trans Mountain should be message for Quebec: Kenney – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – January 27, 2020)

January 28, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

CALGARY – Alberta Premier Jason Kenney says the Supreme Court of Canada’s “unprecedented” dismissal of British Columbia’s move to stop Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project should “send a message” to Quebec that it can’t block the Energy East pipeline project.

During a Global News Radio interview over the weekend, Kenney bluntly criticized the federal government and federal regulatory processes for major projects such as pipelines and oilsands developments.

Asked about the proposed-then-withdrawn Energy East pipeline project, the premier quipped that it’s been easier for Russia to build a pipeline through Europe than for a pipeline company to build a project across Canada.

Trudeau needs to get the Teck oilsands project built – by Diane Francis (Finacial Post – January 21, 2020)

January 21, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

The Teck project is in the national interest, and sorely needed, because it provides jobs, investment and opportunities in a remote, hostile region

A proposed $20.6-billion oilsands mining mega-project by Teck Corp. in northern Alberta is a litmus test as to whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau governs on behalf of Canadians or wants to continue government-by-Greta. Greta Thunberg is a Swedish teenager and poster girl for the global environmental movement.

A decision is expected next month and the usual battle lines have been drawn. “If this project does not proceed, it would be a clear indication that there is no way forward for this country’s largest natural resource,” warned Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

And that also means Alberta and Saskatchewan will have no way forward either. If denied the right to continue to responsibly develop their resources, they will have to “immigrate” or leave Canada. There will be little choice.

Why Albertans are pondering the nuclear option of separation – by Jack Mintz (Financial Post – January 21, 2020)

January 21, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

Alberta is a boiling cauldron about to blow its lid off

Last weekend I participated in the “The Value of Alberta” conference in Calgary. While most of the focus was on options for Alberta’s autonomy, what was most striking were the off-session comments of the 700 attendees. Albertans are running out of patience after five bad economic years.

Many told me about hardships: a friend recently losing a job, farmers unable to get credit, or a relative about to lose a house. They are upset with federal parties and media willing to play up a GM factory closing down or job losses at Bombardier or a corrupt SNC-Lavalin while ignoring the plight of tens of thousands of unemployed Albertans.

Many are angry at unsupportive and obstructionist federal regulatory policies that have dried up investment. They sense the lack of support from other parts of Canada despite Alberta’s huge $650-billion financial contribution over 60 years while other parts of Canada are pandered to buy votes in an election.

How an Oil Boom in West Texas Is Reshaping the World – by Justine Worland (Time Magazine – January 3, 2019)

January 20, 2020

https://time.com/

My view from the window seat of a small regional jet landing in Midland, Texas, is either a testament to the advances of human civilization or a sign of its impending demise, depending on your perspective. Countless oil wells, identified by their glowing red flames, dot the dark landscape.

We are descending into the Permian Basin, the heart of American oil country, where the massive oil and gas boom is changing not just Texas but also the nation and the world.

This year the region is expected to generate an average of 3.9 million barrels per day, roughly a third of total U.S. oil production, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That’s enough to make the U.S., as of late 2018, the world’s largest producer of crude. The windfall has turned a nation long reliant on foreign oil into a net exporter in a few short years.

Supreme Court dismisses B.C. case against Trans Mountain pipeline – by Geoffrey Morgan (Financial Post – January 17, 2020)

January 17, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

Outcome resolves one of the last court challenges to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project

CALGARY – The Supreme Court of Canada has unanimously rejected British Columbia’s move to regulate the flow of heavy oil across its borders, resolving one of the last court challenges to the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

After all-day hearings Thursday, Supreme Court justices dismissed B.C.’s appeal of a lower court decision, which found that interprovincial trade is federal jurisdiction and the flow of commodities such as heavy oil and bitumen should be overseen by federal regulators.

“We are all of the view to dismiss the appeal for the unanimous reasons of the Court of Appeal for British Columbia,” Chief Justice of Canada Richard Wagner said from the bench after dozens of lawyers from across the country presented arguments.

Mark Carney ‘absolutely’ opposes oil divestment – by Terence Corcoran (Financial Post – January 15, 2020)

January 16, 2020

https://business.financialpost.com/

One of Fink’s sentences is worth repeating: “The technology does not
yet exist to cost-effectively replace many of today’s essential uses
of hydrocarbons.” It may be even more complicated than lack of
technology. Some scientists say the physics and essential properties
of energy production make any known fossil fuel substitutes — such
as wind and solar — unrealistic alternatives.

I have some welcome news for Canada’s fossil fuel industry. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, soon to be the UN envoy on climate finance, will not be joining the fossil fuel divestment movement. “I absolutely disagree with divestment campaigns,” Carney said in an email to an FP Comment column reader in Calgary.

Carney’s categorical rejection of divestment clarifies what has appeared to some as the central banker’s ambiguous position on the global campaign to get investment firms, pension funds and other financial institutions to remove carbon-emitting energy corporations from their portfolios.

Many in Canada’s energy sector have expressed concerns about Carney’s views, which will play a key role in policy circles when he returns to Canada this year to take up his new UN role.

Will B.C.’s new UNDRIP law block the province’s natural gas megaproject? Good question – Editorial (Globe and Mail – January 16, 2020)

January 16, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

In the Canadian Venn diagram of Indigenous reconciliation, resource development and climate change, British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink pipeline lands smack in the hot centre of three political issues.

After a long period of debate and negotiation, major construction on the pipeline is set to begin this summer. There may, however, be one final roadblock: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

B.C. last year became the first province to enshrine UNDRIP into law. At the federal level, the Trudeau government plans to do the same. That is even though it remains unclear exactly what UNDRIP means, and how it may change Canadian law. The document pledges governments to secure the “free, prior and informed consent” of Indigenous people in a number of situations, including before giving the green light to resource projects.

Torn loyalties over the future of Wet’suwet’en amid blockade against GasLink – by Brent Jang (Globe and Mail – January 13, 2020)

January 13, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Russell and Elsie Tiljoe have deep roots in the Wet’suwet’en Nation and worry about the growing divisions between hereditary chiefs who oppose Coastal GasLink’s $6.6-billion pipeline project and elected band councillors who support it.

Mr. Tiljoe, 83, and his 82-year-old wife, Elsie, say on-reserve residents stand to benefit from jobs created by construction of the natural-gas pipeline.

But the Indigenous elders also respect the Wet’suwet’en’s hereditary house groups, which claim authority in northern British Columbia over their traditional territory located outside federal reserves.

OPINION: B.C.’s gas-pipeline protest will end in a whimper, not a bang – by Gary Mason (Globe and Mail – January 10, 2020)

January 10, 2020

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

While uncertainty surrounds the final outcome of a blockade that has halted construction of an important natural gas pipeline in northern B.C., be assured that the protest by a small group of Indigenous leaders and environmental activists has zero chance of jeopardizing completion of the project.

There is simply too much at stake, not the least of which is Canada’s international reputation for resource development – which is not great as it is.

The rest of Canada has become inured to environmental confrontations in British Columbia. There is a long, sharp history of them, one that continues to shape the nature and scope of the crusades we are witnessing today. They have become intertwined more recently with court decisions that have handed Indigenous groups more power than they’ve ever known.