Official (Alberta) Oil Discussion Thread

[zamler]

Depending on the source oil consumption in 2020 dropped ~10%, 2021 projections are we will be close to 2019 usage. This chart goes back to 1971 I think I see a trend.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by Thunderball

This. There are a lot of issues with the UCP, but anyone who sees the NDP as good fiscal stewards in comparison needs to take a step back.

They aren't good fiscal stewards, but they are good fiscal stewards by comparison for no other reason than the government they'd be compared to projected a higher deficit (before Covid made those projctions an optimistic pipe dream and before losing the bet on KXL).

High natural gas royalties that are never coming back and booming oil gave the illusion there were any fiscal stewards in the province at all. Increased export capacity (even without KXL or Northern Gateway or Energy East) will help cover some warts, but O&G royalties being used in operations was always this province's fiscal downfall.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by zamler

Depending on the source oil consumption in 2020 dropped ~10%, 2021 projections are we will be close to 2019 usage. This chart goes back to 1971 I think I see a trend.

Well....yeah. We basically skipped 2020 in Quarantine. I havent checked yet, but I'd bet the amount of money I spent on fuel alone in 2020 is probably a joke.

Granted, I had to spend more to keep my home heated because people were home 24/7.

I'm just saying that 2020 is probably not a good year for reliable data. Its a bit of an outlier.

[Nufy]

My co-op rebate is going to suck this year...

Gas purchasing was way down...and we have 4 vehicles in my household...

I think I filled up my truck 3 times in the last year. Used to be once a month at least.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Locke

Well....yeah. We basically skipped 2020 in Quarantine.

The fact that we basically skipped 2020, and oil consumption only dropped by around 10% (7% is the stat I saw) shows how integrated into life it remains...and probably will for quite some time.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Nufy

My co-op rebate is going to suck this year...

Gas purchasing was way down...and we have 4 vehicles in my household...

I think I filled up my truck 3 times in the last year. Used to be once a month at least.

Oh I know, it was nuts. I think I bought a tank of gas when it was hovering at ~$0.50/L and that lasted me months.

I'd be shocked if I filled my vehicle more than a half-dozen times this year. If anything my insurance company should be giving me a rebate or a nice bottle of wine for effectively eliminating all forms of vehicular risk.

I will not be surprised whatsoever if my insurance in 2020 is double what I spent on fuel.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by Table 5

The fact that we basically skipped 2020, and oil consumption only dropped by around 10% (7% is the stat I saw) shows how integrated into life it remains...and probably will for quite some time.

I always tell the story of how in June 2014 a 1% change in supply and demand when the Saudis started pumping tanked prices and I went from O&G to working at a bank.

Right now the kingdom is holding back 3mmbbld of production...they tanked prices by pumping 1mmbbld in 2014. Pre-covid, oil demand was growing 1-1.5% per year driven by Asia.

[edslunch]

This is sad but funny

[Nufy]

The pipe will be easy to sell...Wait till they start liquidating the pumps and pump bldgs / sw-gear etc...

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by zamler

Depending on the source oil consumption in 2020 dropped ~10%, 2021 projections are we will be close to 2019 usage. This chart goes back to 1971 I think I see a trend.

How much did air travel drop by in 2020? I bet it's more than 10%.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Slava

She lost me by the end. I think that people look back on her time with rose-tinted glasses. For me, the carbon tax implementation and borrowing for operations were absolute deal-breakers. There is no other description for that, other than sheer fiscal incompetence. You can chalk some things up to inexperience and I'll go along with that. But when you are so daft as to borrow for operations and try to paint it as 'Keynesian", I'm out. It's incredibly stupid.

Originally Posted by Thunderball

This. There are a lot of issues with the UCP, but anyone who sees the NDP as good fiscal stewards in comparison needs to take a step back.

Alberta needs an actual fiscal conservative party that isn't handcuffed with ideology. The closest is the Alberta Party, but they need a lot of work.

Alberta also needs to forge some deals within Canada, and be able to use that bloc to force the government's hand. Getting Ontario and Saskatchewan to help push Trudeau on Keystone is what we need more of.

It is a myth that conservatives are good economic stewards. There is virtually no history of a economically successful conservative government in North America for generations now. If you are looking for a reason to support conservatives, don't use money. The hole we are in was dug by the PCs, and UPC has no vision to fix the economy beyond hope.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by #-3

It is a myth that conservatives are good economic stewards. There is virtually no history of a economically successful conservative government in North America for generations now. If you are looking for a reason to support conservatives, don't use money. The hole we are in was dug by the PCs, and UPC has no vision to fix the economy beyond hope.

I didn’t vote for the UCP either. But there’s a lot of people looking back on the NDP thinking we missed, and glossing over the immense stupidity we saw.

[woob]

The mess we are in as a province is at the hands of many years of bad governance, not just the last 6. Tack on the fact the the feds never sought to take our national energy situation seriously for the past 15-20 years and you have our current situation. The biggest annoyance I have with politics, especially in Alberta, is that it's so "what have you done for me lately" and there's zero long term agenda/plan. We had a 40 year PC dynasty that did nothing to truly build for the future of this province. We had multiple years of federal governments who didn't take what Alberta had to offer the country seriously. And now with politics becoming even more fractured, with soundbites and posts on twitter being more important than parties trying to work together, I don't see any improvement in the future.

I'm rambling on a bit for sure. If the Conservatives came out and said they will force through an energy corridor, complete a national pipeline, and build massive lab and vaccine facilities in the next 4 years I would vote for them in an instant. That to me would be worth whatever social garbage we'd have to endure for 4 years. Of course the cynic in me says they'd never follow through anyways, and it'd be a wasted vote regardless.

Definitely feeling a little hopeless with this country's politics. And not that it matters, but last election I voted NDP provincially and Conservative nationally. Rambling post over.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Slava

I didn’t vote for the UCP either. But there’s a lot of people looking back on the NDP thinking we missed, and glossing over the immense stupidity we saw.

But conservatives are economically terrible, everyone needs to be reminded about that every time they try to use economic policy against their opponents.

stop trying the same thing and expecting different results.

[para transit fellow]

Originally Posted by Nufy

My co-op rebate is going to suck this year...

Gas purchasing was way down...and we have 4 vehicles in my household...

I think I filled up my truck 3 times in the last year. Used to be once a month at least.

We are a society that tends to mourn the personal loss of 9 cents cash-back/cash-rebate instead of rejoicing at the 91 cents of personal savings.

This week, I heard this same lament from one of my staff who felt the loss of approx $1000 on our rebate cheque was going to impact us to a greater degree than the $35,000 drop in our fuel bill (compared to 2019)

We have 18 vehicles

[Nufy]

You obviously missed the levity in that statement...

I'm not mourning anything. My bank account is certainly bigger from WFH and the reduced fuel costs.

Drama much ??

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Nufy

You obviously missed the levity in that statement...

I'm not mourning anything. My bank account is certainly bigger from WFH and the reduced fuel costs.

Drama much ??

Yeah...its been a wild year, if nothing else we've been saving a ton of money. Not eating out, not travelling, barely driving, not really going anywhere.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

So Trudeau has to put on his I love Alberta Oil T-Shirt and address that elephant in the room, though its probably too late because he gave way too much power to Quebec and BC and Ontario.

But Canada has to have a cross Canada pipeline, its that simple, and Canada has to build on its capacity to ship oil at both ends of the country.

Can't agree with this enough.

In my opinion, Energy East was the best pipeline proposal, followed by Northern Gateway, TMX then KXL.

The country needs to diversify the markets it has access to, invest in greening the O&G sector and looking to move away from exporting the raw material (whether that's more upgrading at home or materials like polypropylene).

[The Yen Man]

It's hard to get mad at the US when Canada can't even get their own crap together. Why would you expect the US to be friendlier to Canada than Canada is to itself? There should be no excuse why Energy East and TMX is the crapshow that it has been so far, other than purely political reasons. I'm way more pissed off at BC and Quebec than I am at the US.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

Can't agree with this enough.

In my opinion, Energy East was the best pipeline proposal, followed by Northern Gateway, TMX then KXL.

The country needs to diversify the markets it has access to, invest in greening the O&G sector and looking to move away from exporting the raw material (whether that's more upgrading at home or materials like polypropylene).

Energy East is an absolutely terrible pipeline because it tolls were so expensive. It went up to $17 to Saint John uncommitted. That might work in $90-110 barrel oil but not $50-70. There isn't even that much demand left in Eastern Canada as Ontario as well Montreal is almost entirely Canadian.

Northern Gateway had huge political opposition that crossed traditional lines kinda of like the current opposition to coal mining. Losing the weakly supporting pro-pipeline people would have been a disaster and there's no guarantee we would have won them back. It could have been a fire that engulfed pipelines and the oil industry.

What has worked are low-key expansions that avoid the spotlight. Look at Line 3 replacement which no longer has any serious court challenges or opposition by any level of government. Line 9B reversal had one brief disruption shortly after completion and nothing afterwards. Keystone is still getting it's 170,000 barrel expansion something that pretty much no one is talking about(and it should stay way).