calculoso - I admit that was a bit presumptive but was basing it on the profits they're making. Could many companies afford to walk away from those profits? Your example talks about lean times. Indeed the following paragraph:
Quote:
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But recently, as international prices have rocketed above $50 a barrel and technology advances have pushed production costs down to about $18 a barrel, the sands suddenly are stunningly attractive.
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I've tried to work out how much the tax will cost per barrel (roughly). Feel free to critique or point out any flaws/omissions. It's a bit crude
, rounded out and based on a few non-expert sources.
"It takes around 3 times as much energy to produce a barrel of oil from oil sands as it does for typical oil extraction. (85.5kg CO2 per barrel compared to 28.6kg CO2)."
http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where...ands/index.cfm
Rounds out to ~12 barrels per tonne CO2
"In July Royal Dutch Shell released its 2006 annual report and announced that its Canadian oil sands unit made an after tax profit of $21.75* per barrel, nearly double its worldwide profit of $12.41 per barrel on conventional crude oil"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tar_sand
*Conservative for todays profits IMO given the price of oil then and how technology should have improved efficiency.
21.75 x 12 = ~$261 profit per tonne CO2 produced
Dion wants $10/tonne or $10 from every $261 profit rising to $40 over 4 years = 3.8 % rising to 15.3%
First figure desn't sound too bad but the second:
. I'm thinking they're a bit lower given the 2006 figures but nonetheless $40/tonne is still a considerable dent.
As I said feel free to critique and suggest whether these taxes are enough to make companies walk/ hold back operations/ cut costs etc. I honestly don't know.