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    Premieress

    Agriweek, Augst 13 2012 page 8:


    Too bad the premier of B.C. is a she. Otherwise he could be taken to the woodshed and taught a thing or two about how to behave in public.
    These disputes about oil pipelines, in which the B.C. government proposes to collect protection money from operators of the proposed Northern Gateway line, have assumed proportions of ridiculousness previously unreached even by the Canadian political left and the native pressure groups. There is no provision in any law or in the constitution which allows a province to collect fees for interprovincial works that cross its territory. Oil and gas lines from Alberta converge on southern Manitoba, where they connect to lines into eastern Canada and south into the U.S. Over decades of NDP rule no one has come up with the notion that a province is entitled to a share of another province’s natural resource revenues.
    It gets worse. Now the B.C. premieress and also others are also talking about a ‘national strategy’ for energy. Every time you hear about a top-down government strategy you are hearing about another step into economic central planning and government control-freakishness. Considering the way in which the free-market system has enabled resource wealth to save Canada from the economic convulsions wracking the rest of the world, this is no time to be tinkering with what is not broken.
    The B.C. government, nor any other provincial government, does not have a legal way to enforce demands for a pipeline ransom. But it can delay and frustrate regulatory processes and tie up a project for years, while offering to back off if it is paid off. This is conduct so unethical as to border on the criminal. It is normally known as blackmail and there are stringent laws against it for everyone, it seems, but politicians. The B.C. government is already helping already well-heeled native interests to do the same.
    Each month that a project of this type and scope is delayed is a month of lost economic activity, wealth creation and employment. Opposition to the pipeline and to petroleum development generally has been intensified, by the publicity B.C. has generated, in the lunatic fringe of uber-environmentalists. Even the Quebec government is taking sides in a matter that does not concern it, excepting that Alberta’s resource wealth is the main source of the transfer-payment payoffs which make possible the lavish European-style Quebec welfare state.
    The federal government is taking steps to stop frivolous interference with projects of national importance, but these plans are unpopular even in parts of the population that are not otherwise anti-development. But there is no other way. The issue of oil spills is totally phony. There are millions of miles of oil pipelines in the world, most built before present technology was available or present standards applied. New pipelines are safer
    Many people seem to have not noticed the changes that are going on in the North American petroleum sector. Hydraulic fracking has opened up the Bakken formation in North Dakota to economic development. The basin contains several billion barrels of oil that was previously not recoverable at reasonable cost. Now it is in the mid-range of per-barrel cost. There are other areas of the U.S. that are comparably situated. American energy production is rising; very recently the so-called experts said it would be petering out by now. Increases in renewable energy production and conventional petroleum (as well as reduced consumption) have cut U.S. oil imports from two-thirds of total use to just over half. A time will come, if it has not already, when the U.S. market for Canadian petroleum will be substantially less profitable than offshore markets, especially in Asia. Considering the speed with which the American energy equation is changing and the length of time it takes to build a multi-billion pipeline, no delay is acceptable.
    At stake is the further development of the Alberta oil sands and also conventional petroleum. Canadian oil exports to the U.S. are actually price-discounted already relative to world values. If the oil cannot be moved to the best-paying markets there is no point in producing more of it. Without the enormous wealth being generated by the western petroleum industry all of Canada would be sinking as fast as the manufacturing base in eastern Canada.
    Resource (and also agricultural) exports to the booming Asian manufacturing countries must also rise to prevent very unhealthy balance of payments trends. The Canadian merchandise trade deficit with China last year was a staggering $32 billion. Exports of $16.4 billion were just 34% of imports. Selling Alberta oil to China is a matter of self preservation.

    #2
    I wouldn't sell one barrel of tarsands oil to China. Keep it ALL here and use it for Canadians...after all we are subsidizing the production of this resource both federally and provincially.

    Comment


      #3
      Premier Clark is using Northern Gateway as an issue to get re-elected. If she gets elected next spring, suddenly all her opposition to NG will disappear. If the NDP form the next new government in BC.....well....who knows?

      I suspect the fix is in on this pipeline? Harper wants it and with his new regulatory changes he will ram it through one way or the other.

      Clark (or more likely NDP Dix) can tax the hell out of Enbridge and their Chinese partners. Alberta gets paid royalties at the oilsands, not at Kitimat.

      Enbridge needs to clean up it's act. The issue isn't whether modern pipelines are safer than older lines, it is about being accountable? The spill into the Kalamazoo River showed they have a very poor attitude and really are "keystone kops"?

      Comment


        #4
        agriman---First question I have to you is have you got an NEB regulated large diameter pipeline that crosses your land?

        A few points to follow ASRG comments. Federal law trumps provincial law so that yes the Federal government can override any provincial concern and issue.

        Our Prime Minister has recently stated in the news that the Approval of the NG pipeline has to be about facts and not politics.

        The National Energy Board NEB is the regulator that oversees arguments of any pipeline project. All the provincial ranting and all the first nations ranting is all smoke and mirror.
        The NEB has not turned down a pipeline companies request for a certificate yet. If the NEB doesn't approve the NG pipeline the federal government and the prime minister can overturn a decision by the NEB.

        Agriman---do you fully understand the lifecycle of a large diameter pipeline project?

        The corridor that comes from Alberta Tarsands east through Saskatchewan, Manitoba and further east or south has now got 6 Enbridge pipelines in the corridor. Some of these lines are very old now. Integrity digs are more and more frequent. That means colloring the pipes.

        The real problem comes after the oil spills and aging of the pipelines. It is now the abandonment in place that landowners are very concerned about. Huge problems when modern farming practices over the pipelines with todays machinery in regards to "liability to landowners" when they cross the pipes Section 112 of the NEB act and now the companies abandoning in place. Shallow pipelines, rotten steel, collapses, groundwater contamination, environmental farm plans concern of abandoned gas stations on agriculture land.

        We are very involved with keeping Enbridge accountable as landowner groups but also I am an ENbridge shareholder and attend shareholders meetings.

        Comment


          #5
          While pipeline failures are a very real
          concern, all Canadian need to get it
          through their slow learning heads it is
          only the oil industry that creates
          enough wealth to keep us out of the
          third world. Newly minted members of
          the third world like Greece Spain and
          Italy a re soon going to be wishing they
          had our oil industry. If we do not get
          Gateway underway soon we will be joining
          Greece et al in the third world. Hope
          Christy Clarke will be happy then. I
          hope she is enjoying the squalid poverty
          that she has contributed to creating.

          Comment


            #6
            My first job was in the engineering department of Trans Canada Pipelines. It was a while ago but I think I know more about pipelines than the average bear.

            Comment


              #7
              anytime anywhere agriman.

              I loved negotiating across the table with the engineering department. They were made "FOOLS" many times during the SAPL/MPLA ENBRIDGE negotation meetings.

              It is the legal department you have to know about agriman.

              Lets look at the gateway project. What does it really mean. Two pipes 36 inch parallel. One to transmit butamen to the Pacafic Ocean the other is to transmit a very volatile product to Alberta so that the butamen can be made available for tranmission.

              This was the southern lights component of the Alberta Clipper project.

              Wouldn't a good possible solution to the Gateway project to elimate the second highly volatile substance transmission is the building of upgraders in ALBERTA. What about the jobs it would create in Alberta, Canada and sending a more finished product to the Pacific ocean on the 36 inch line?

              Why are the first nations rallying and lobbying and reacting the last 2-3 years over opposition to the Gateway project.

              What would of happened if Enbridge would have proposed a second route of the Gateway. The first nations would be fighting over the pipes then.

              Remember "right of entry order" cannot be imposed on first nation land. Their opposition will have those bands if the Gateway gets approved to be getting "ROYALTIES BY THE SECOND" and huge profits to that group of people.

              Comment


                #8
                I guess we'll see what our BC natives are really made of and how committed they are to that "mother earth thing"?

                Gateway is great for the multi national oil companies. Great if you need a job at Fort Mac.

                Not so great if you are one of the natives getting poisoned at Fort Chip. Not so great if you make your living fishing on the west coast.

                For the average Canadian, do we really care if communist Chinese state oil companies make a lot of money?

                Comment


                  #9
                  I realy dont understand the need for these pipelines.
                  As of now we have virtual full enployment If the aholes we have running the gov would show just a little responsibility we would have money to burn, so why the big rush to get the oil sold and gone for ever all that does is increase profits to forien companys and before you all get on how proffits are not bad how about a few profits for us (not USA).
                  I sure would like some honest person to tell us the truth about our oil endustry. We cant believe the oil industry itself or our Gov or various think tanks , it seems they all have thier own agenda.
                  I do know that the oil biz dances to a whole diferent set of drums compared to other industry.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Horse, you hit the nail on the head. I might also add I would not feel so bad if Alberta was earning some decent royalties on this oil/gas as well. I've worked as a contract engineer on the exploration and production side since the mid 90's and it has been an eyeopener. The oil companies (lean in the mid 80's and 90's) are now very fat, inefficient and rotten to the core ( more so on the production side). If this goes through it will more a benefit to the oil companies balance sheet and employee's stock options, not so much Canada's benefit.

                    Comment

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