Official (Alberta) Oil Discussion Thread

[Kybosh]

I was at the breakfast this morning and I will say that the Honourable Jim Carr seemed very well suited for his role. I was honestly impressed with the way he handled himself and most of the answers he provided. I don't agree with the direction they're going in regards to pipeline approvals, but he seemed like a very reasonable individual willing to work with industry. The questions weren't soft in the slightest either.

One thing that stuck out to me is he mentioned that the new government was more interested in have frank, open discussions and dealing with criticism, as compared with muzzling dissenting opinions ala Harper.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Taken without the abject cynicism this is likely going to be very good policy.

Conclusive evidence that you know nothing about solar power.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Tinordi

Taken without the abject cynicism this is likely going to be very good policy.

Right.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by _Q_

I think the $10/barrel tax is essentially the United States blinking first on cutting production. This is great news for Canada if it goes through.

How so? The US doens;t export oil and if they did I would suspect you'd see a rebate for exported oil. All this does it put very mild downward pressure on demand.

[GGG]

One reason I have faith that Trudeau will actually move on the Pipeline portfolio is that his Campaign co-chair was a pipeline lobbyist. It was a controversy during the election campaign.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cana...aign-1.3272049

I don't know how you have a pipeline guy running your campaign unless you are going to approve pipelines.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by peter12

In other news, Notley's government has launched a new support program for solar projects in the province. Creating jobs! Hooray!

Government subsidies for all!

Except for you energy industry, you get to pay more carbon taxes.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by ranchlandsselling

Yeah, the $700 million is driving me crazy hearing about it constantly. What a drop in the bucket. How much did Suncor cancel the other day?

It drives me nuts that this is just money that was already coming our way from the last government's budget. I guess we just need to be happy they didn't cancel it.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

Government subsidies for all!

Except for you energy industry, you get to pay more carbon taxes.

Unconventional oil extraction had significant subsidies when it first started. And if you look at the royalty structure the government pays Carbon taxes on energy extraction out of the royalty. The oil companies don't pay it.

[PsYcNeT]

More solar can't be anything but good for Alberta, particularly with how many sunny days we have (1292 kWh/kW total photovoltaic potential in Calgary alone).

Alberta puts out 8 MW total solar, with half of that coming from two large farms (Green Acres Hutterite and Bassano). Sadly, in comparison, cloudy Ontario's total solar is at 2356 MW, or nearly 300x our output.

Even more sadly, solar is still not a terribly effective means of energy generation, with a city of ~1 million requiring ~10,000 MW yearly to keep it online.

[IliketoPuck]

Originally Posted by GGG

Unconventional oil extraction had significant subsidies when it first started. And if you look at the royalty structure the government pays Carbon taxes on energy extraction out of the royalty. The oil companies don't pay it.

I was referring to the new carbon cash grab:

http://www.alberta.ca/climate-carbon-pricing.cfm

[Jacks]

Originally Posted by GGG

I don't know how you have a pipeline guy running your campaign unless you are going to approve pipelines.

Do you apply the same logic to the anti pipeline and anti oilsands people surrounding Notley?

[username]

Originally Posted by peter12

In other news, Notley's government has launched a new support program for solar projects in the province. Creating jobs! Hooray!

I wait with bated breath to hear their plan to fund this.....

[stampsx2]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

More solar can't be anything but good for Alberta, particularly with how many sunny days we have (1292 kWh/kW total photovoltaic potential in Calgary alone).

Alberta puts out 8 MW total solar, with half of that coming from two large farms (Green Acres Hutterite and Bassano). Sadly, in comparison, cloudy Ontario's total solar is at 2356 MW, or nearly 300x our output.

Even more sadly, solar is still not a terribly effective means of energy generation, with a city of ~1 million requiring ~10,000 MW yearly to keep it online.

with a green energy cost of 9.2 billion paid for by the taxpayer. It's good people want to go green since coal powered plants in alberta produce the equivalent carbon of the alberta oil sands. However it bothers me how governments have no problem throwing around people's money. It should be up to private business with maybe some tax incentives or something.

http://news.nationalpost.com/news/ca...in-extra-costs

[peter12]

I just want to know when I will get my fair share of the solar energy profits.

[_Q_]

Originally Posted by GGG

How so? The US doens;t export oil and if they did I would suspect you'd see a rebate for exported oil. All this does it put very mild downward pressure on demand.

If you can import $35 oil, then American oil has to sell at $25 to make it competitive, therefore making some producers unprofitable and driving supply down. American demand might decrease slightly, but global demand will remain almost the same which will in turn drive prices up.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Slava

I watched the press conference and the first question (and a few others) were on pipelines and specifically on Energy East. I didn't think he waffled at all, and didn't give a maybe/maybe not either. I'm just going to paraphrase here, but he basically told Rick Bell point blank

"we had a government who tried all kinds of things for the past decade and despite all those efforts they weren't able to build a single pipeline. My strategy is totally different but I'm confident that it will work."

He also commented about the ERB approvals and said (again paraphrasing, so don't crucify me on semantics!) " I'm not going to pre-judge ERB and their processes. I'm not going to politicize this process."

Basically the ERB is non-partisan and they have to give their approval. Its not something that can be circumvented, so we'll have to wait and see. To me that doesn't sound like waffling at all though; that's a pretty clear indication that once the approvals are there he wants it built.

And frankly, why wouldn't he? Its a pretty big feather in his cap to say during the next campaign "we got this pipeline rolling despite our predecessors not being able to do it." Politically there are a lot of reasons why the federal government should be all over this.

This says - literally - nothing

[GGG]

Originally Posted by _Q_

If you can import $35 oil, then American oil has to sell at $25 to make it competitive, therefore making some producers unprofitable and driving supply down. American demand might decrease slightly, but global demand will remain almost the same which will in turn drive prices up.

The tax applies to imported barrels as well per the article.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by IliketoPuck

I was referring to the new carbon cash grab:

http://www.alberta.ca/climate-carbon-pricing.cfm

Yeah and that cost comes out of the royalty that a company would previously have paid.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Jacks

Do you apply the same logic to the anti pipeline and anti oilsands people surrounding Notley?

Notley surrounds herself with people that fit her ideology but still needs to get re-elected. Therefore she has to be pro some pipeline.

Trudeau surrounds himself with people that fit his ideology but still needs to get elected so he needs to appear to care about the concerns of Quebec but will still follow the lobbyist money.

So yes I do apply the same logic to both but end up in different places as to what I predict their behaviour will be.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Alberta puts out 8 MW total solar, with half of that coming from two large farms (Green Acres Hutterite and Bassano). Sadly, in comparison, cloudy Ontario's total solar is at 2356 MW, or nearly 300x our output.

Yeah and how's that going for them?