Author: Editor Northwest Coast Energy News

The Kochs and Keystone XL: Columbia Journalism Review

Columbia Journalism Review looks at the Koch brothers, their Canadian holdings, and attempts to intimidate the media from small news sites to giants like Bloomberg and Reuters.

The Kochs and Keystone XL

The article concentrates on a small site called InsideClimateNews. This is what CJR says about InsideClimateNews and Koch’s Canadian holdings

Koch Industries owns an Alberta-based subsidiary called Flint Hills Resources Canada LP, whose website says it is “among Canada’s largest crude oil purchasers, shippers, and exporters.” According to InsideClimate, it “supplies about 250,000 barrels of tar sands oil a day to a heavy oil refinery in Minnesota, also owned by the Koch brothers,” and “operates a crude oil terminal in Hardisty, Alberta, the starting point of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.”

“Although the pipeline, if approved, would increase the supply of oil reaching the U.S., a 2009 market analysis conducted by TransCanada, builder of the pipeline, forecast higher prices,” InsideClimate reported. “The analysis, which TransCanada conducted as part of its Canadian permit application, projected that prices would increase about $3 per barrel as a result of the pipeline,” putting at least a $2 billion in Canadian oil producers’ pockets.

“Given its deep involvement in the Canadian petroleum industry, the Koch brothers’ operation stands to snare some of the windfall,” Sassoon concluded.

Update:
Koch owned Flint Hills Resources is intervenor in Northern Gateway Joint Review

PetroChina likely to join Kitimat project, Shell CFO tells Bloomberg

Energy

Eduard Gismatullin, a London-based reporter for Bloomberg News reports in Shell, PetroChina May Ship Canadian LNG to Gain From Asia Prices that:

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, together with PetroChina Co. and Japanese and South Korean partners are examining plans to ship liquefied natural gas from Canada’s west coast to Asia.

“This gives us a chance to arbitrage the price differential between $4 gas in North America and with what in the last quarter was around $15 gas prices in Asia,” said Shell Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry. ‘It’s highly likely” that PetroChina will be a partner in the project following collaborations with Shell in Australia and China.

Kinder Morgan aims to expand Trans Mountain pipeline: Globe and Mail

Energy Link

Nathan Vanderklippe writes in The Globe and Mail  Kinder Morgan aims to expand Trans Mountain pipeline

A second project has been launched to carry major new volumes of oil-sands crude to Pacific waters, amid mounting industry interest in exporting Canadian oil to Asia.
 
Kinder Morgan Canada has begun accepting bids from companies prepared to ship oil on a proposed expansion of its Trans Mountain system, which runs 1,150 kilometres from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C.

The Trans Mountain pipeline system, which runs from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., would be twinned to carry more crude.

The process is called an “open season,” and serves as an important kickoff to a project that has ambitions similar to the controversial $6.6-billion Northern Gateway pipeline proposed by Enbridge Inc. It also promises to raise a new front in the battle between industry and environmental critics over building infrastructure to move oil across B.C. and onto tankers.

Both Northern Gateway and the Trans Mountain expansion seek to open new access to Pacific tidewater, providing a connection to Asian markets for an industry that is increasingly eager to break its dependence on the United States as virtually its sole export destination…

Business and labour leaders show their support for northern pipeline initiatives: Vancouver Sun

Energy Economy

Gordon Hamilton in the Vancouver Sun writes Business and labour leaders show their support for northern pipeline initiatives

Sixteen business and labour leaders have signed an open letter to British Columbians urging their support for natural gas and oil pipeline proposals across the northern half of the province which they say are needed to link Canada’s energy resources and B.C.’s economic future more closely to Asian economies.

The letter marks the first public relations campaign aimed at swaying opinion province-wide towards energy projects in the North. Up until now, only regional support groups have been formed, such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway Alliance, which is actively supporting Enbridge’s $5.5 billion Alberta-to-Kitimat pipeline project in communities along the pipeline route.

The letter was written by former federal transportation minister Chuck Strahl. Signatories include former international trade minister David Emerson, the B.C. and Yukon Territory Building and Construction Trades Council, the Business Council of B.C., the Vancouver Board of Trade and the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters the country’s largest industrial association.

Cheap power comes at a price: Vancouver Sun op ed

Energy Politics

Marvin Shaffer, an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University and a public policy consultant, writes an op ed commentary in the Vancouver Sun  Cheap power comes at a price

A striking feature of the government’s jobs strategy is the number of very electric-intensive projects it entails. The strategy calls for the development of new mines and liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities, all of which will require very large amounts of electricity.


The first phase of the proposed LNG plant at Kitimat in itself will reportedly consume some 1.5 million megawatt hours of electricity per year, or roughly one-third of the entire output of the proposed Site C dam project.


Media commentators have questioned whether BC Hydro will be able to supply these large new requirements for electricity.


Pipeline politics trump sisterhood of the premiers: Globe and Mail

Energy Environment Politics

Pipeline politics trump sisterhood of the premiers

The Northern Gateway pipeline could be the most glittering jewel of all in Premier Christy Clark’s highly-hyped jobs plan for British Columbia.

The proposed, $5.5-billion project to carry Alberta crude from the oil sands through northern B.C. to the West Coast port of Kitimat would create 4,000 well-paying construction jobs and hundreds of permanent positions.

Yet, awash in mutual admiration as women leaders of Canada’s two westernmost provinces, Ms. Clark nonetheless found herself differing with Alberta’s freshly-minted premier, Alison Redford, on the ambitious Gateway megaproject during Ms. Clark’s brief visit to Calgary last week.

Washington State proposes converting ferries to LNG

Energy

The Seattle Times reports Plan would convert ferries to liquefied natural gas

A proposal to convert six Washington state ferries to liquefied natural gas could save nearly $10 million a year, consultants have told top Washington legislators.

The conversions of the Issaquah-class ferries would cost $65 million, but consultant Cedar River Group said the money would be paid back in seven years through fuel savings.

The six ferries have a life expectancy of 30 more years…

If the state were to convert the six Issaquah-class ferries built in the 1980s — the Cathlamet, Chelan, Issaquah, Kitsap, Kittitas and Sealth — they would be the first ferries fueled by liquefied natural gas in the nation.

China Petroleum plans expansion in Canada: China Daily

Energy Link

CNPC plans steady overseas expansion

 
China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC), the country’s biggest energy company by production, said on Thursday that its overseas expansion will continue to focus on the upstream division with Canada and Australia as the major targets.

CNPC’s overseas oil and gas output is expected to reach 100 million tons of oil equivalent this year, of which equity-based production will account for 50 percent, according to Jiang Jiemin, the company’s general manager.

In 2010, the energy conglomerate’s overseas oil and gas output stood at 86.73 million tons.

“Our company’s foreign sales and profits will both hit a record high this year,” Jiang said. He added that CNPC plans to continue to rapidly and consistently expand overseas and that it regards Canadian and Australian assets as its top priorities because of the two countries’ abundant natural resources and steady investment environment.

Thousands to speak on proposed Northern Gateway pipeline

Northern Gateway 

John Cotter of Canadian Press reports that at least 4,000 people have signed up to speak at the Northern Gateway Joint Review hearings, even though the panel staff has not yet finished counting the applications for oral arguments.

Thousands to speak on proposed Northern Gateway pipeline

More than 4,000 people and groups have registered to speak at hearings into a proposed pipeline that would ship crude from Alberta’s oil sands to fill supertankers on the British Columbia coast.

Opponents of the $5.5-billion Enbridge Inc. Northern Gateway pipeline hope the surge of public interest will pressure Ottawa not to approve the project.

Cotter also says Enbridge is becoming worried about the delays and is now saying activists are trying to manipulate the hearings:

Calgary-based Enbridge says it welcomes public input, but is concerned the process could bog down.

Enbridge spokesman Paul Stanway said the project is already eight months to a year behind. If approved, it’s possible the startup date for the pipeline could be pushed beyond 2017.

He said Enbridge is also concerned people could be manipulated by groups that hope to turn Northern Gateway into an anti-oils ands battleground similar to the Keystone XL pipeline debate in the United States.

“There is no question that the groups internationally who are opposed to the development of oil sands oil are focused on both projects,” Mr. Stanway said.

In a news release, the group Forest Ethics says the 4,000 oral witnesses will far surpass the 558 that spoke before the Mackenzie Valley pipeline hearings in the 1970s.

The news release quotes Jolan Bailey, Canadian Outreach Coordinator with ForestEthics as saying: “It’s clear this project has struck a very public nerve,”. “Enbridge’s plan to punch a pipeline through to the West Coast has hit a wall of opposition that stretches from Kitimat to Kalamazoo.”

ForestEthics says at least three residents from Michigan plan to speak about the damage wrought by Enbridge’s spill into the Kalamazoo River in July of 2010.

DFO, Coast Guard to “shed services” documents obtained by CBC say

Environment Fishery

 

Documents obtained by CBC News say there are major cuts coming to DFO and the Canadian Coast Guard.


Fisheries and Oceans to ‘shed’ services

Employees of the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans were told Wednesday their employer will soon be significantly smaller, and responsible for fewer things.

DFO also warned its workers that some of them will definitely not be working there once the department completes a $56.8-million budget-cutting plan by 2014.

“More savings are expected in the future,” said a letter signed by Deputy Minister Claire Dansereau and two other top officials.

The letter and supporting documents, which were obtained by CBC News, say reductions are part of a “dynamic change agenda,” and will apply broadly to services that include the Canadian Coast Guard.