Foreign Ownership

[riders2010]

Wonder how many acres of farmland does the Canadian and Australian governmnent own in China?

[ColevilleH2S]

100% employment, something to complain
about???? Now I've heard everything!

Nexen doesn't own the oil anyways, the province
does. What is the difference if it is Statoil pumping
the oil or CNOOC? Both are foreign state owned
companies, yet everyone is all up in arms with
CNOOC. Could it be because of the colour of
managments skin isn't white enough for your
sensibilities?

[nicolaas]

I will restate and rephrase: with 100% employment in alberta, we are still running a 3.4BIllion dollar deficit. Your taxes are not covering the deficit. Perhaps the oil companies should pay more royalities. Instead we want to sell companies to STATE run belligerent countries that will take the low royalty oil for their own use. Raise the royalties for heavy oil and refine at home. More jobs for coleville!!! If you want to subsidize china, sell your jacked up p/u truck and send them the cheque! (I do not even want to get into the amount of fresh water lost forever in these projects so we can sell china subsidized oil)

[ASRG]

coleville: with all due respect....once the operator leases the mineral rights.....they do indeed own the oil?

I do agree with you however that it doesn't really matter if it is a Chinese company or French, Or Kuwaiti that is developing it......the AB gov still gets their royalty share.

Some will argue that royalty isn't enough...but it isn't that simple.....oilsands are a complicated business....they aren't as simple as pumping Saudi oil.

When people talk about raising royalties to cover the Alberta deficit, it is my opinion they have completely missed the real problem? The Alberta government DOES NOT have a revenue problem....they have a SPENDING problem? If oil royalties were twice as high these clowns would piss it all away!
Ralph Klein ran massive surplusses at $25 oil......Redford has massive deficits at $96 oil......you figure it out?

[grassfarmer]

nicolaas this is what it looks like to me too:

"Not a lot of thought for the future, just me, me, me
and now now now!! This attitude is why we still have a
rotten governing party in ALberta....... As long as the
sheep can buy their toyhaulers and beer for the
weekend, everything is ok though?

[sumdumguy]

At some point, the governments will have to
decide if it is good to sell farmland and resources
to Chinese non-farmers.

Sovereignty will be the issue.

[ColevilleH2S]

OK ASRG I'm really splitting hairs here but I still
contend the do not own it. A company which holds
a mineral lease for oil in the ground does not know
from year to year what potion of it is theirs free and
clear and what portion is the governments. Any
provincial government can change that at their
whim. They tell the producer what the producer can
keep. Didn't the Alberta government screw around
with royalty rates like that, five or six years ago?

If the producers truly owned the resource they
would pay an up front price for it and then be free to
produce and sell free from government oversight.

As for grassys comment, I always find it
disconcerting how some people pay so much
attention to what the neighbours own and do.

[ASRG]

Coleville: Good point.
I would also point out this government cancelled quite a few oil sand leases in the lower Athabasca region. It will be interesting how they deal with compensation to the affected companies? This cancellation of leases was done under Bill 36 (Land Stewardship Act) and will be a real test of the fairness of compensation for what amounts to an expropriation of private property?

[sumdumguy]

Could the governmenr charge higher royalty rates
on foreign-owned resource extraction just like
they differentiate foreign students at university
where they charge foreigners higher tuition?

[nicolaas]

I guess i do not have an issue with foreign ownership as long as they are paying for it. It is bad enough with the american companies, let alone the chinese. I like how Danny williams handled the problem in NFLD... he told them to pay or take a hike. After the expected temper tantrum of a year or so, the oil companies came back.... I wish our politicians could see beyond the next election cycle.