Official (Alberta) Oil Discussion Thread

[Locke]

"Oil is a dying industry."

Every time I hear that I chuckle. Its like the mantra of the eco-ignorant.

I'm sure people wont think about it when they get in their cars, to go to their homes and pour water into a plastic cup and then go upstairs to have a shower in their plastic en-suite and then brush their teeth and....well, this could go on forever.

But yeah. Oil is dying. Sometime soon. Sure.

[Monahammer]

The federal government did at one point try to move heaven and earth to make Canada nationally energy independent. If the goals of the NEP had been borne to full fruition, no doubt we would have several transnational pipelines to the east coast already in place, and probably many more to the United States as the federal government would have an even more vested interest ($$) in seeing those through.

We didn't like it too much.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Locke

"Oil is a dying industry."

Every time I hear that I chuckle. Its like the mantra of the eco-ignorant.

I'm sure people wont think about it when they get in their cars, to go to their homes and pour water into a plastic cup and then go upstairs to have a shower in their plastic en-suite and then brush their teeth and....well, this could go on forever.

But yeah. Oil is dying. Sometime soon. Sure.

Alberta has done a horrible job at actually converting its oil resources into usable plastic products. They are almost entirely made elsewhere, unless said product has an application in withdrawing more oil from the ground here.

Look at Masks for example- a hot topic for this year. Most are made with Polypropylene non-woven fabric. Polypropylene is a copolymer upgraded from propylene, which in turn is upgraded from Propane. Alberta creates propylene, ships it to the gulf coast of Mexico where it is converted into polypropylene, then it is largely shipped to the east coast where it is made into polypropylene weave and sold back to potential mask manufacturers in Canada.

Nitrile Butadiene Rubber is a similar story.

[CaptainCrunch]

Officially dead. TC indicates thousands of layoffs.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...tion-1.5880268

In a statement released Wednesday morning, TC Energy said it was disappointed in the move and warned it would lead to the layoffs of thousands of unionized workers.
"TC Energy will review the decision, assess its implications and consider its options," the statement reads. "However, as a result of the expected revocation of the presidential permit, advancement of the project will be suspended."
The company said the decision would "overturn an unprecedented, comprehensive regulatory process that lasted more than a decade."
The company struck a deal with four labour unions to build the pipeline and has an agreement in place with five Indigenous tribes to take a roughly $785 million ownership stake.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Table 5

You and I are lucky that our livelihoods are not directly tied to the energy sector, but I can see why it is extremely frustrating to those that are. The majority of these hurdles are not free-market driven, were put there by those outside of our province's borders, and we are not allowed to navigate around them as we see fit. The only path forward that we are being given is to start doing things that are outside of our natural competitive advantage. It's like taking away the basketball from Lebron James, and telling him that he's welcome to play hacky sack.

I totally get it. I understand frustration of trying to succeed despite regulation and processes outside my control. I spent years trying to get government approval in a very challenging process in development. I think you might have had some knowledge of that. Despite extreme frustrations, I ultimately succeeded not by digging in and calling people throwing up those barriers stupid. I found a way to persuade them. With market access for energy, I'm simply posing the question, what is the best way to change tact and be more successful on that front? I'm also suggesting that diversification isn't an either/or tactic. Lebron can play basketball and learn hacky sack. Pretty athletic guy.

[Ducay]

Fossil fuels are dying. That is why good people© choose to replace the Albertan crude that would've come by pipelines with Saudi and Venezualan crude that will come by sail powered boats to the refineries in the gulf coast and eastern Canada.


Oh....whats that? They're powered by bunker oil and is amongst the dirtiest energy sources on earth?

And sorry, what? The net oil consumption in the world didn't go down by one drop but instead of having an energy independent North America we're put additional $$ in the pockets of the Saudi, Russian, and other terrible regimes? (both socially and environmentally)

Well whatever, in the name of climate change it is a good thing KXL, EE, and the rest of these pipelines are nuked by us good people©

[TorqueDog]

^No oil required to burn these strawmen, that's for certain.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I'm simply posing the question, what is the best way to change tact and be more successful on that front?

I have no clue. I don't understand the industry enough on a granular level, but from my layman's point of view, I don't see how Alberta gets around the energy hurdles without some sort of outside/federal help (which I don't think is coming), or some extreme (and probably suicidal) tactic like turning off the pipes and trying to force access by shutting things down around them.

Originally Posted by Bunk

Lebron can play basketball and learn hacky sack. Pretty athletic guy.

I'm sure Lebron would be half-decent at a lot of activities. But he's absolutely elite at the sport of basketball, it's what pays the bills, and there are sold-out arenas around the world clamouring to watch him play. If he wants to hack on the side, he's free to do so. But you gotta let the man play ball!

[Ashasx]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

^No oil required to burn these strawmen, that's for certain.

what exactly is wrong with what Ducay posted?

[Wormius]

What is the benefit to the US for approving KXL? Even if there was no environmental concerns, why would they want this?

[Firebot]

Originally Posted by Locke

"Oil is a dying industry."

Every time I hear that I chuckle. Its like the mantra of the eco-ignorant.

I'm sure people wont think about it when they get in their cars, to go to their homes and pour water into a plastic cup and then go upstairs to have a shower in their plastic en-suite and then brush their teeth and....well, this could go on forever.

But yeah. Oil is dying. Sometime soon. Sure.

I'm still waiting for an electric commercial plane to show off how oil is dead.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...ne-ever-to-fly

Progress, feels like we are in the 1900s...for no purpose other then because.

Those amazon essential oil packages don't magically teleport themselves to the door.

I feel that people think of electricity like some magic phenomenon that can just be created out of thin air and just used at will without the need of batteries to store it.

Beautiful landscape by those climate friendly lithium mines and beautiful neon green pools.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Bunk

I totally get it. I understand frustration of trying to succeed despite regulation and processes outside my control. I spent years trying to get government approval in a very challenging process in development. I think you might have had some knowledge of that. Despite extreme frustrations, I ultimately succeeded not by digging in and calling people throwing up those barriers stupid. I found a way to persuade them. With market access for energy, I'm simply posing the question, what is the best way to change tact and be more successful on that front? I'm also suggesting that diversification isn't an either/or tactic. Lebron can play basketball and learn hacky sack. Pretty athletic guy.

As a private company I think your only option is to de-risk.

That means securing government funds to do your projects like TC Energy, Transmountain or Inter Pipeline did. The government has limitless power to fight vexatious lawsuits, unlike a private enterprise. Those blaming Kenney don't realize that KXL was gonna be dead in March without government support. That 1.5B investment frankly paid the salaries of a ton of welders, inspectors, engineers, drafters and other staff for 9 months within the worst economic environment I've ever seen.

The other option is to have governments centrally plan linear infrastructure, then guarantee payments to private enterprise - which is the case in Mexico. If your approved project gets canceled for any reason, you get all your money back.

Basically, government is the solution!

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Wormius

What is the benefit to the US for approving KXL? Even if there was no environmental concerns, why would they want this?

Their refiners need heavy oil as feedstock for their refineries which they are not getting enough of.

Additional capacity to the Gulf Coast enables additional development in the fields that a pipeline can serve. Example is that KXL was going to go through Baker, which is kind of a hub around the Bakken fields.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Wormius

What is the benefit to the US for approving KXL? Even if there was no environmental concerns, why would they want this?

It's a rational move in that it continues to tie Canada's oil supply to the US, ensuring a reliable and below-market pricing for oil for decades to come.


The rational move for Canada after this rejection would be to look for new buyers around the world and expand export capacity, ideally to the point where you can play Americans vs Asians.

[Bunk]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I'm sure Lebron would be half-decent at a lot of activities. But he's absolutely elite at the sport of basketball, it's what pays the bills, and there are sold-out arenas around the world clamouring to watch him play. If he wants to hack on the side, he's free to do so. But you gotta let the man play ball!

The metaphor may be tortured. In any event, I see a lot of the world’s largest energy companies doing this kind of diversification - they don’t seem to see it as hacky sack, but maybe more switching from forward to guard in basketball. I do hear some of ours talk about areas like hydrogen too.

[DiracSpike]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

^No oil required to burn these strawmen, that's for certain.

Everything he said is correct. That’s why this is so frustrating.

Hope you’re happy with this decision by your buddy Biden, fellow calgarian!

[OldDutch]

This should be a wake up call to Canadians, that we enjoy our standard of living at the US discretion. That whole Obama trip up here 4 years ago to pat Justin on the head didn't seem to add up to much when Justin needed a real favor back. Day 1 cancellation basically means Biden think much about Canada's position here. This was an American politician looking after his base voter, allies be damned (Didn't we just hate that the last 4 years?)

Anyways, If we were/are smart we would have, and maybe still can build export pipelines on our land. We control that. We could use that money to pay the bills that are coming due, and transition to green on our terms. Heck we could actually help Indigenous people by partnering! We should legislate that, or sell it to them to operate!

As much as the Liberals like to politicize everything to avoid making hard decisions, this is one staring them in the face. They killed 2 pipelines they had control over to appease Quebec and BC. They hurt Indigenous owners in the process. Now are staring at maybe 1 left, and it isn't nearly enough to not leave good money the country needs on the table.

My guess is there is some embarrassment in Ottawa tonight, only for poor Justin and the Liberals who thought they would be getting a better partner in the South. The Obama bro who should have done a solid for another Obama bro? That is how it works right? No!?! but but Environment and Progressive politics!

As been preached for years now, need to put on our big boy pants and deicide if outside forces and separatists will decide our future, or we will control our own path.

If you keep borrowing money to pay for things you lose control. Sometimes we need to trade off to make sure we are not sliding to a position where the lenders are dictating what we are going to do with our country. I feel tonight that it is unfortunately clear where we are heading quickly.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Table 5

I'm with you though, I think if we're serious about climate targets and still want to maintain our energy lifestyle, a much heavier reliance on nuclear is needed. It actually already makes up something like 20% of the USA's energy needs. In France it's a whopping 70%. France is an interesting case-study in that it's energy prices are half the cost of those of it's neighbour Germany (who went big on solar/wind instead).

I'll float you a different idea.

Find a wind developer to partner with and offer them ~$40/MWH for a 200MW windfarm for 20 years. Developer is free to sell offtake credits at their discretion. Any excess electricity produced is returned to the government via Contract for difference scheme like the first REP contracts.

Partner with a company like Linde or Plug Power or whatever company has best of breed electrolysis tech to make green hydrogen. Locate the facility close to some oil and gas processing facility that requires steam and is currently burning Nat Gas to create it. Catch is that processing facility needs to be located somewhere proximal to a sufficient wind resource, Joffre comes to mind.

Grant the process facility the funds to convert to cogen (if not already doing so) and to convert to burn hydrogen, and generate electricity with the waste heat. This would be a market generator so would have to bid into the merit order, otherwise the big generators would scream bloody murder. Investigate installing a second electrolyzer to locate at the facility to utilize undispatched electricity and feed back into the system.

This solves several problems. "Greens" the O&G processing, generates green power and develops the hydrogen know-how.

[VladtheImpaler]

The Keystone will get built when the American middle and the coasts go their separate ways. I am joking... well, sort of.

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

I'll float you a different idea.

Find a wind developer to partner with and offer them ~$40/MWH for a 200MW windfarm for 20 years. Developer is free to sell offtake credits at their discretion. Any excess electricity produced is returned to the government via Contract for difference scheme like the first REP contracts.

Partner with a company like Linde or Plug Power or whatever company has best of breed electrolysis tech to make green hydrogen. Locate the facility close to some oil and gas processing facility that requires steam and is currently burning Nat Gas to create it. Catch is that processing facility needs to be located somewhere proximal to a sufficient wind resource, Joffre comes to mind.

Grant the process facility the funds to convert to cogen (if not already doing so) and to convert to burn hydrogen, and generate electricity with the waste heat. This would be a market generator so would have to bid into the merit order, otherwise the big generators would scream bloody murder. Investigate installing a second electrolyzer to locate at the facility to utilize undispatched electricity and feed back into the system.

This solves several problems. "Greens" the O&G processing, generates green power and develops the hydrogen know-how.

So what increase gets passed on to the consumer in this model, rate payer increases or additional taxes? Also how do you deal with the possibility that they don't reach a certain amount of MW of delivery?