Alberta Politics Thread v2

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Dion

https://twitter.com/user/status/1098285479659589632

Umm. Those quotes seem kind of iffy. I could piece together whatever I want by “...”ing everything up.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

That's fine, and if people want to post some advertising and actually discuss something about it, well that's fine too. But if you just pop in here to drop a piece of advertising for any of the parties, I'm pretty sure you owe Bingo some money.

Guess October was a long time ago.

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by tripin_billie

Alberta separatism makes it to Fark

Wow. And I thought reading the CBC comments section was bad...

[Dion]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Umm. Those quotes seem kind of iffy. I could piece together whatever I want by “...”ing everything up.

Here's where some of the quotes come from this BNN article.

But Michael Loewen, commodities analyst with Scotiabank, said there are “inherent risks” in the assumptions and vague details of Alberta’s crude-by-rail plan.

“The finer details pertaining to the crude-by-rail deal are vague as exhibited by the Q&A session, which may highlight market and operational risk,” Loewen wrote in a note to clients. “The following are unknown: From which E&Ps (exploration and production) does the province purchase barrels? Is access to crude-by-rail loading facilities included in these CN and CP Rail deals? Into which markets (exactly) will these barrels be sold? With a provincial election looming, will the next government stick to this plan?

Rafi Tahmazian, senior portfolio manager at Canoe Financial, said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg’s Catherine Murray that Notley would be better off focusing on getting pipelines built, rather than moving oil by rail.

“I think all of their energy should have been spent on trying to cure the illness, not trying to keep us alive with the illness. The cure is to get the pipelines,” Tahmazian said Tuesday after the announcement. “Instead what we have is governments creating more and more interference in the private sector, and costing us more and more.”

Tahmazian also criticized Notley’s description of its plan as having no risk.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/that-s-r...plan-1.1217033

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Dion

Here's where some of the quotes come from this BNN article.





https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/that-s-r...plan-1.1217033

This kind of criticism is kind of pointless to me. On one hand, yeah I want to know who the government plans on buying from and where they’re selling. I’m not enthused by that part of the plan. On the other hand, the “they should focus on pipelines” angle is just laughable. It’s the provincial government and I think they’ve mentioned that they’re in favour. There’s not much else they can do, realistically.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Dion

Here's where some of the quotes come from this BNN article.











https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/that-s-r...plan-1.1217033

Brett Wilson injecting himself into politics again. You’d think he would be more subtle than having one of his employees write this piece.

[stampsx2]

And now Devon Energy says it itends to leave the Canadian Oil sector.

https://globalnews.ca/news/4978946/d...dian-oilsands/

Never have we witnessed such brutal leadership from our governments. I guess we’ll just get healthcare and education funding from thin air.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by Slava

This kind of criticism is kind of pointless to me. On one hand, yeah I want to know who the government plans on buying from and where they’re selling. I’m not enthused by that part of the plan. On the other hand, the “they should focus on pipelines” angle is just laughable. It’s the provincial government and I think they’ve mentioned that they’re in favour. There’s not much else they can do, realistically.

It’s a political battle. She could actually fight it. She continues to choose not to.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

It’s a political battle. She could actually fight it. She continues to choose not to.

Yeah, I agree to an extent. It's just that it's not really her decision, and won't be the UCP's in another month or two. I want the province to take a harder line on these things, but it seems like a cheap-shot for Canoe to say that they should focus on building a pipeline. Truthfully, because of the GIF though, you win this for sure! How can I compete with a Sedin getting punched in the face!

[woob]

Originally Posted by tripin_billie

Alberta separatism makes it to Fark

Wow.. Fark is still around?

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Dion

Here's where some of the quotes come from this BNN article.

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/that-s-r...plan-1.1217033

Well, there's no pipeline being built anytime soon, so something needs to be done. I doubt the UCP has any better plan, and in fact if they're voted in they'll just stick with the NDP plan and claim their hands are tied. If Notley wanted to be nasty, she could just let the increased rail car plan fall through and let Kenney figure out how to get the oil to market. Yes, focus on the pipelines which has done what exactly? Maybe we should just built them straight up north through the NWT.

[Muta]

I still want to see what the UCP's strategy is to bring back the 'good ol' days' of 2007 and 2013 when the city swam in thick, luscious oil money and everyone ordered double meat at Subway and didn't work half the year. Surely they have a plan for this.

[CaptainCrunch]

More on the rail plan


https://globalnews.ca/news/4984797/c...GlobalEdmonton

The head of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. has voiced his displeasure at the idea of Alberta’s $3.7-billion deal with Canada’s two biggest rail companies to ship more crude via rail amid a pipeline crunch squeezing oilsands producers.


“So the government steps in, we didn’t like it at all,” said Keith Creel, speaking at a conference in Miami on Wednesday.

Despite his laissez-faire viewpoint, Creel admitted the deal was “just as good if not better” than others hammered out by CP Rail.


The railways have drawn on lessons from unfilled contracts following the crude-by-rail boom five years ago, entering into multi-year contracts with oil shippers that set minimum volumes and higher fees to help insulate them from volatile demand.

[Dion]

The letters Kenney sent to CP and CN

https://twitter.com/user/status/1098633882595778560

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

More on the rail plan


https://globalnews.ca/news/4984797/c...GlobalEdmonton

Also from that article from Kenney:

“It is clear to us that oil producers have been prepared to increase shipments by rail at their own expense under the right market conditions.”

Does he think that is realistically going to happen? I think its fine, if we provide producers with transport at-cost, what is the issue?



I think Kenney is trying to kill the energy industry in Alberta with this idea, or is he expecting that CPC is going to win the election and force through a pipeline?

[iggy_oi]

Why does Kenney keep calling the deal a secret? It’s been widely reported for months

[CaptainCrunch]

I'm not a fan of this move to be honest.


I'm guessing his position it that the NDP are over spending on this and that's why he wants the contract details.


But this seems like a silly fight to pick to me.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Also from that article from Kenney:

Does he think that is realistically going to happen? I think its fine, if we provide producers with transport at-cost, what is the issue?

I think Kenney is trying to kill the energy industry in Alberta with this idea, or is he expecting that CPC is going to win the election and force through a pipeline?

Kenny's statement does have evidence to support it as Cenovous was signing long term rail deals to ship barrels. What the NDP approach does is takes the risk that a pipeline will get approved off of the table for these corporations. If a pipeline gets approved being stuck shipping at $18 would be pretty brutal when the pipeline ships at $9.

Because this risk exists and the long term liability of rail contracts is a big risk companies outside of the majors can't really take advantage.

I think the business case is pretty sound here the more I think of it. The government is betting against medium term increases in pipeline capacity. They are putting a ceiling on the diff and allowing for increased production. If additional pipeline capacity is created they profit off of the decreased differential if not they profit off of the rail shipping.

So this deal is mainly a trading of upside from pipelines in the medium term to cushion the downside risk while supporting smaller companies.

The big way the government could lose a lot of money is if WTI drops so that an $18 diff does not allow for profitable oil production in the volumes recovered to use the lines.

Do I like that the government has reached this point? Absolutely not. Does this intervention into markets make sense? Probably given the failure of governments to allow pipelines to be built.

Kenny takes an interesting position here that is consistent with his conservative positions of limit interference in markets but will be a tough sell politically as his best argument was that Notley failed the Oil Industry, now it appears that his plan is do less.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

I'm not a fan of this move to be honest.


I'm guessing his position it that the NDP are over spending on this and that's why he wants the contract details.


But this seems like a silly fight to pick to me.

What was the the president of CP Rail implying by the deal that was hammered out was good though? Good for CP Rail? Good for the Alberta? Both?

[GordonBlue]

another reason to hate the UCP.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmon...dows-1.5028732

Len Rhodes, former president and CEO of the Edmonton Eskimos, has been appointed the United Conservative Party candidate in Edmonton-Meadows.

UCP Leader Jason Kenney told an Edmonton news conference Thursday that a rule allows him to appoint up to four candidates, to allow high-profile people like Rhodes to run.


I can see the slogan now. "Rhodes will do for you what he did for the Eskimos."