Category: Politics & Government

Three pipeline builders race to reach new markets Keystone, TMX and Gateway: Alberta Oil

Alberta Oil 

Pipelines have never been so popular. For years, the steel conduits followed unseen routes. They carried rivers of crude oil beneath city and town alike, rarely drawing so much as a passing thought from those who depended on their valuable cargo. Today, proposals by Kinder Morgan Canada, Enbridge Inc. and TransCanada Corp. face fierce opposition in a bid to carry more Canadian crude oil – chiefly increased oil sands production – to new markets.

Excerpt from Alberta Oil interview with Nlorthern Gateway President John Carruthers

 

The primary markets where we would see the most value are China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Now once the oil reaches tidewater it can access any market. We would see crude going periodically to different markets. But those four markets in particular have strong demand. The proximity of Canada to those markets and the fact that they can process Canadian crude is all very positive. Potentially the oil could also go to California.

No real need for pipeline between oilsands and West Coast: bureaucrat: Vancouver Sun

Vancouver Sun


A multi-billion dollar pipeline project that would link the oilsands region to the coast of British Columbia offers new export capacity that the Canadian industry does not really need, senior bureaucrats have told the federal government… 

 The details of the federal assessment were released in over 300 pages of internal documents from Natural Resources Canada, obtained by Postmedia News, which also noted rising public opposition to Enbridge’s proposed project over concerns about oil spills that could plague pristine natural habitat on land and water — especially in light of recent accidents such as BP’s Gulf Coast well blow-out and an Enbridge crude oil pipeline rupture and leak into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

Editor’s note The Sun says Environmental Defence of Toronto filed the original Access To Information request.

TransCanada defends pipeline project in Washington

PostMedia News

Calgary-based TransCanada Corp. courted its U.S. congressional allies — and confronted its foes — on Monday amid an effort by Republicans to pass legislation forcing the Obama administration to approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline before the end of 2011.
In testimony before the House subcommittee on energy and power, TransCanada executive Alex Pourbaix dismissed as “completely false” allegations by environmental groups that diluted bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands is more dangerous and corrosive to transport than conventional heavy oil.

The case for co-operation Why Shawn Atleo and Pat Daniel should have lunch: Alberta Oil

Alberta Oil

The case for co-operation Why Shawn Atleo and Pat Daniel should have lunch

A great, though as-yet untapped, ally in the quest to deliver Alberta crude to the Far East could be Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo, who in the same Globe piece lamented the glacial pace of treaty negotiations and the resulting impact on industrial development. “What we have is the potential for perpetual and repeated conflict,” Chief Atleo told the paper. “That doesn’t do anyone any good. It has an adverse impact on not only relationships but overall the economy.”

Editors Note: This online column in Alberta Oil magazine by Jeff Lewis, is based on an interview with Enbridge Northern Gateway CEO  John Carruthers,with this quote

Carruthers, the company’s Gateway chief, reiterates the nation-building argument in the June edition of Alberta Oil. “Accessing alternative, large and growing markets provides critical value for Canadians…”

The Carruthers interview is not available online at this time,

Timeline: Alaska’s natural gas pipe dreams

Alaska Dispatch

Timeline: Alaska’s natural gas pipe dreams

Denali — The Alaska Gas Pipeline project is dead, which is déjà vu for many in Alaska. Talk of the gas line has been going on since workers struck oil at Prudhoe Bay in 1968. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter went so far as to sign legislation designating the Alaska Highway as the route the line would take. That’s pretty much been the trajectory of the project ever since….

In 2008, former Gov. Sarah Palin awarded the company the license to build the line, along with $500 million in state money to help it along the way. It was her signature piece of legislation. TransCanada says that its project is still moving forward.

But to know to know where Alaska’s going with this, it’s important to know where it’s been. 

374-denali-gas-pipeline-thumb-175x113-373.jpgAlaska Dispatch covers the plans, politics and problems of the Denali natural gas pipeline from 2003 until the cancellation of the project.

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Time to settle First Nations land claims: Financial Post

Diane Francis, columnist, Financial Post

Time to settle First Nations land claims

The time has come for Canada and the provinces to make timely and responsible resource development the country’s number one national interest. This represents a policy priority that has never existed but is absolutely essential today to protect Canadian living standards and rights.

To date, Canada has behaved like a patchwork quilt of special interests and various levels of government whose leaders have bobbed and weaved but never devised a just or swift means of settling, or rejecting, land claims by First Nations…..

This week, the opening shot of what could be a monumental battle was fired when First Nations representatives from British Columbia came to warn Big Oil in Calgary that they would obstruct any linkage to Asia via pipelines, and presumably, rail lines, through their territory. If joined by others, and this is a given, their obstructionism for gain, or ideology, will financially damage landlocked Alberta, the prairies, the North and therefore the living standards of all Canadians.

Frankly, I don’t blame First Nations for obstructing development because they face a politicized and dysfunctional court system that never settles, never seems to reject new claims, never deals with any expeditiously and never imposes a deadline on requests.

Editor’s note: Read the quote from Financial Post business columnist Diane Francis carefully. In the key paragraph quoted here, she mentions the economy of Alberta, the prairies and the North. Somehow she neglected to mention the economy of the British Columbia, and the impact of the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, for good or ill on BC. A conservative columnist, Francis, seems to assume that First Nations are against the pipeline simply for gain or “ideology,” and that settling Land Claims will lead to the construction of the pipeline,

First Nations stand ground

Financial Post

First Nations stand ground

In case their unequivocal message hasn’t been received, British Columbia’s First Nations are in Calgary this week to make it clear to the board of directors of Enbridge Inc., Enbridge’s annual meeting of shareholders and members of the broader oil community that the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline is not going forward. 

It will be a difficult message to accept. The pipeline between the oil sands in Alberta and Kitimat on the northern coast of B.C. is a big plank in the oil-and-gas industry’s strategy to develop a new market for its products in Asia, a major part of Enbridge’s growth strategy, a key piece of strategic infrastructure for all of Canada, and a major job creator for Western Canada.