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Originally Posted by Firebot
#-3's response is typically the one that occurs in these types of discussions and what we generally find in this forum. If such people were reasonable in discussing, the question asking to debate it wouldn't be happening as they would get informed themselves. Generally, they are already of a narrative mindset born out of years of deliberate misinformation and biased agendas.
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I genuinely appreciate the response, I do think there is an overly leftward lean on this board in general, I would argue the main reason for this if when a right leaning person makes a claim on this board people begin to refute the claim, then the right leaning claimant tucks tail and run because they are unwilling to defend their claim against an argument made in good faith. While generally I have seen many people on this board who have become more and more left over time as the right wing has detached itself more and more from good discourse, that will defend their point or revise their point when faced with new information.
I will admit in this case my argument was made in bad faith, because yes I was making fun of the fact that when certain political parties do not provide the level of corporate charity you (and sorry I do not mean to include/exclude you directly, I mean the general vibe from the right wing political movement) expect you will spend generations pissing and moaning about it, while giving the other side of the isle a free pass on things that are far more egregious in every measurable way fiscal/social/moral.... The fact is was Trudeau openly friendly to the O&G industry, no. Did he single handily decimate the industry? No. It is an industry that grew not only in scale but market share under Trudeau, large because of Trudeau policy which was the expansion of TMX.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Firebot
Effectively, if your profit margins drop by over half, and you need to double production to make up the margin loss, are you ahead just because you are producing more? Most reasonable folks would say no. That's where oil prices, WCS discount, carbon taxes all factor in to why oil and gas companies still need to produce, and produce more.
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I'd like to tackle this claim directly, it is the reason I specifically cited global market share in my argument. This is especially relevant in a commodities market. As you know because you are seemingly in the industry, when profit margins falling one of the things you can do to further erode margins is produce, because commodities have this habit of following simple supply and demand curves. I don't work in O&G, but I can tell you when customers start buying less we do one of 2 things, we look to offer new services or we take less work on usually at lower prices and see out profits drop, rarely especially during down turn would be expect to just push more product out on to the market and hope it makes things better.
I'll also state that I am not reciting mis-information that is received from outside. I have spent the bulk of my career buying/selling non-O&G commodities, and my opinions are my own and fully formed in comparison to other industries, going directly to sources like statscan to understand how prices and volumes are changing over time.
I do understand the expectations of the O&G industry in Alberta which is unregulated development, and government charity on site reclamation. I believe I heard and I wont say at this time to what extent it is true but the uninsured clean up liability of O&G production in Alberta might be as high as 50% of every dollar every received from royalties, and this is claim I may be able to provide sourcing for tonight, I think but I am not sure it came from a UofC researcher David Keith, but I could be remembering wrong. Hundreds of billions of dollar, so like any other industry, it is incumbent on the government to mitigate that risk. And I think likewise, it should be incumbent on businesses within that industry to learn to work within a market that is mitigating those risks, instead of whining that big bad Trudeau was mean to you. Trust me, my industry is facing ever increasing government regulation too, an we meet it with innovation and higher standers, not an organized disinformation campaign that blames everyone else for all of our problems.