One morning in early June, a fire broke out at an obscure facility in Texas that takes natural gas from US shale basins, chills it into a liquid and ships it overseas. It was extinguished in 40 minutes or so. No one was injured.
It sounds like a story for the local press, at most — except that more than three weeks later, financial and political shockwaves are still reverberating across Europe, Asia and beyond.
Alberta’s boom-bust economy is once again booming. It’s a sonic boom, really — one that is shattering records fiscally and promising to wreak havoc politically. The windfall will, among other things, fundamentally change the shape of the United Conservative Party’s race to replace Jason Kenney.
The numbers are staggering. A year ago, the Alberta government predicted it would collect $44 billion in revenue and run a whopping $18-billion deficit in the 2021-22 fiscal year.
If the Canadian and American governments want to seriously tackle inflation, the most sensible thing they could do is negotiate a comprehensive agreement to ensure energy independence for North America.
Bizarrely, the U.S. now seeks relief from Saudi Arabia even though President Joe Biden labelled the Kingdom a “pariah” during the 2020 campaign. His welcome-mat may not be royal. Similar overtures are being made to Venezuela and even Iran, when the most obvious option for access to more oil and gas lies on America’s northern border.
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If the West can use sanctions and embargoes as weapons of war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia, so can Russia – in retaliation. And that is precisely what is happening.
In recent weeks, Russia, the main supplier of Europe’s imported natural gas, has been making it more difficult – even impossible – for European clients to buy its gas. First it demanded payment in rubles, not dollars or euros; Moscow ended deliveries to Bulgaria, Finland and Poland, allegedly for their refusal to pay in rubles.
With Russia reducing natural gas supplies to Europe, several EU countries are considering burning further carbon-intensive coal to secure energy supplies for next winter. Germany and Austria this weekend announced emergency measures to cope with lower Russian gas flows, including the potential use of coal-fired power plants to produce energy.
The move comes after weeks of gas-supply cuts and reduced flows to Europe, which has prompted EU governments to seek alternative supplies and build up reserves. Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom has turned off supplies to several EU countries for refusing to pay for gas in roubles — including Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, and the Netherlands.
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Canada’s latest export data put a clear spotlight on just how big a role oil still plays in our country’s economy. Exports of all goods in March reached a new monthly record of $63.6-billion, Statistics Canada reported, surpassing the previous high of $58.7-billion, set in February.
The surge is powered by oil. Energy now accounts for more than a quarter of Canada’s exports, a level last hit in 2014, when crude prices were also on a tear. Back then, Stephen Harper was a vocal booster of the oil industry, and not much interested in talking about climate change.
Petroleum industry associated with wild price swings and armed conflict
Climate scientists have been clear that if we want to reduce carbon emissions and slow the pace of global warming, one crucial step is moving from a transportation system run on fossil fuels to one powered by electricity. But it’s possible that doing so might neutralize other toxic aspects of the petroleum industry, such as volatile prices and armed conflict.
“The ability to electrify transportation and get off combusting fossil fuels, and oil specifically, means we would solve massive geopolitical problems, which have been just a plague for the last 100 years,” said Adam Scott, executive director of Shift, a Toronto-based charity that advocates for sustainable investing.
Coal, oil and gas versus windmills, EVs and carbon sequestration
Oilprice.com covered the latest energy trends Monday with a report that U.S. investment giant Warren Buffett is “betting big on oil and gas stocks.” One assumes that Buffett is not a follower of Mark Carney, former central banker and chief proponent of climate financial strategies based on the assumption that fossil fuels will become stranded assets and should be divested ASAP.
Back in 2015, as governor of the Bank of England, Carney warned of a “potentially huge” risk that reserves of coal, oil and gas could become “literally unburnable.” Carney has continued to present a fossil-fuel doom scenario since his 2015 warnings, telling banks to get out of the oil and gas corporations that risk bankruptcy.
The world has been consumed with combatting climate change for some time. But something changed this year. As Russian troops invaded Ukraine, policy-makers across the world were confronted with a more immediate challenge: energy security.
Moscow’s aggression laid bare the vulnerability of global oil markets, and the ability of bad actors to disrupt energy supply chains. The domino effect of a spike in oil prices has rippled through markets for other commodities and industries, and has already knocked out global economic growth.
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The United States backs a continental approach to clean energy that would see the U.S. and Canada working together on critical minerals and other resources to bolster security against threats such as the war in Ukraine, says U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.
“One thousand per cent,” Ms. Granholm said when asked if she envisioned a dual-nation, continental approach to energy concerns, including securing minerals needed to make batteries for electric vehicles.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Germany has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It has increased its defence budget and sent weapons to the Ukrainian military. It has launched a barrage of sanctions against Russia and some of its billionaires.
This week, in Hamburg, German authorities impounded the superyacht owned by the family of Alisher Usmanov, the Russian oligarch industrialist closely linked to President Vladimir Putin.
There’s a new Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse report out… and he starts off by saying:
…you can print money, but not oil to heat or wheat to eat. I’m so glad because this rather obvious point seems to be completely missed by economists and analysts for unknown reasons.
Nor do they seem to get that just because the commodity market doesn’t match the scale of the bond or equity market that doesn’t mean it is not significantly more important for the world economy than anything else.
OTTAWA – The federal government set firm targets for massive emissions cuts in Canada’s oil and gas industry Tuesday, but offered little detail about how it will help the industry make those steep reductions.
Unveiling the plan at a press conference in Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was confident Canadian companies would find ways to meet the targets. “With record profits, this is the moment for the oil and gas sector to invest in the sustainable future that will be good for business, good for communities, and good for our future,” Trudeau said.
Melissa Mbarki is policy analyst and outreach co-ordinator for the Indigenous policy program at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
When there is foreign interference, especially from high-profile celebrities like Ruffalo, it sets Indigenous communities back
On March 17, actor Mark Ruffalo called on the Royal Bank of Canada to stop financing British Columbia’s Coastal GasLink Pipeline, citing “climate change and First Nation’s rights.” Once again, Indigenous people are being stereotyped as anti-resource, when in fact only a minority hold this position, as evidenced by the fact that all 20 First Nations along the line have approved the project.
The Coastal GasLink Pipeline will transport natural gas to the Douglas Channel near Kitimat, B.C. This coastal port will then transport liquefied natural gas (LNG) to global markets. LNG will replace coal-fired electricity, reducing emissions around the world, which will have a positive effect on the environment.
Chris Sankey is a former elected councillor for the Lax Kw’alaams Band, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a businessman.
Oil and gas sector emissions caps proposed by Ottawa will hurt hundreds of Indigenous communities who need responsible resource development to achieve prosperity and opportunity. The Trudeau government is ignoring its political and legal obligations to Indigenous peoples.
Liquified natural gas (LNG) production is extremely important to our communities in northern British Columbia. In other areas, oil production, processing and distribution hold the key to prosperity. Indigenous communities have been working for years to identify projects that our nations could support. We intend to pursue such opportunities as we see fit.
