[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by fotze

Stelmach Blinks possibly...

Or not....

http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt...23280520071012

PT-UPDATE 2-Alberta premier committed to oil-sands reform--aide
Fri Oct 12, 2007 7:23pm BST
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(Repeats to add UPDATE 2 to headline) (Adds comments from panel chairman)

By Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Alberta, Oct 12 (Reuters) - Alberta's premier has not ruled out any recommendations from his royalty review panel, which has urged the province to boost its take from the oil industry by C$2 billion ($2.1 billion), or 20 percent, a year, his spokesman said on Friday.

"No final decisions have been made," Tom Olsen, a spokesman for Premier Ed Stelmach, told Reuters. "The premier is committed to meeting the objective of the report. The suggestion of (panel chairman Bill) Hunter is that there was room to move on royalties. The status quo is not an option."

Olsen was responding to a report in the National Post newspaper, which said Stelmach told a business audience at a private meeting that he might not adopt the "most contentious" recommendations of the review panel.

Quoting "notes taken by sources at the breakfast function," the newspaper reported that Stelmach said he "will not trounce existing agreements."

The oil industry has taken pains to discredit the panel's report, entitled "Our Fair Share," with companies, lobby groups and brokerages issuing dire warnings on a daily basis about deep cuts in industry spending and job losses.

Panel members have said the report's measures would preserve the competitiveness of Alberta, whose oil sands represent the largest crude deposits outside the Middle East.

Stelmach is slated to respond to the report on Oct. 24. He won the leadership of the ruling Conservative Party last year promising more transparency on major policy issues than had been the case under his predecessor, Ralph Klein.

Recent polls have shown Stelmach's popularity rising from lows earlier in his tenure and political analysts have attributed that to his statements that he will not be bullied.

Olsen said Stelmach still insists there will be changes to the royalty regime and that "Albertans will be treated fairly."

"There was no blinking. Period," Olsen said.

Hunter, whose six-member panel wrote the report after six months of consultation throughout the province of 3.2 million people, said he has received no indication on whether the Stelmach government will adopt all of or parts of it.

"We delivered the report on (September) 18th and gave another briefing to caucus the 19th and then that's the last I've heard from the boys," said Hunter, a retired forestry executive.

His panel urged the government to adopt its measures without "grandfathering" provisions that would allow existing projects to keep their current terms for economic rent.

But developers have said that would squeeze the economics of multibillion-dollar oil sands developments, which already face surging operating costs due to a stretched labor supply and inflation in materials like steel.

"I still stand behind our report 100 percent. I think it's a very good piece of work, and what (no grandfathering) does do is that it simplifies the process, makes it an even playing field and it gives Albertans their fair share," Hunter said.

Other recommendations are higher royalties for oil sands developers once their projects reach payout, a new tax on oil sands output tied to crude prices, an increase in royalties for prolific conventional oil and gas wells and a drop in rates for low-production wells.