Climate Change / Emissions

Co-op campaign for ban on tar sands fuel

June 14, 2010

A coalition led by Manchester’s Co-operative Group has accused EU lawmakers of watering down landmark climate change legislation in order to allow fuels derived from the controversial Canadian tar sands to be imported into Europe.

Last year the European Commission’s proposals for the fuel quality directive penalised tar sands oil for emitting significantly more greenhouse gases than conventional oil, but following lobbying by the Canadian government all reference to tar sands has been dropped.

Offshore Drilling Backlash May Boost Shale, Oil Sands

*Date:* /15-Jun-10/

*Author:* Jon Hurdle and Jeffrey Jones

The massive Gulf oil spill may hasten the development of shale gas and oil
sands, North America's two most important emerging energy sources.

The risk of pursuing deepwater oil reserves dwarfs the environmental concerns
facing both onshore sectors.

Neither Canadian oil sands petroleum nor natural gas from U.S. shale beds will
immediately substitute for delayed Gulf of Mexico crude output in the wake of a

Alberta tar sands equipment supplier opens in Billings

By KIM BRIGGEMAN of the Missoulian | June 9, 2010

A major supplier of equipment to the rapidly expanding oil and gas market in the Alberta tar sands has set up shop in Billings.

Berry Y&V Fabricators plans to assemble modules in Montana and truck them north to the oil sands fields near Fort McMurray, according to a report last week in the Edmonton Journal.

Mexico: Civil Society Divided Ahead of Climate Summit
Written by Emilio Godoy
Sunday, 06 June 2010

(IPS) - With less than six months before Mexico hosts the next global climate change summit, Mexican environmental organisations hosting the parallel civil society forum are divided on how to carry it out -- which some fear could ultimately weaken their role at the negotiating table.

Stelmach defends oilsands on foreign, domestic fronts

Premier calls protests 'unfortunate'

By Jason Fekete, with files from Dina O'Meara, Calgary Herald, and the Edmonton Journal, Calgary Herald June 10, 2010

Alberta's oilsands are facing a new cross-border assault, with a community in the U.S. boycotting the resource and a cosmetics store in Canada demanding development be halted.

Gulf oil disaster doesn’t make the tar sands green
Jeff Rubin's Blog // Globe and Mail
Wednesday, June 9, 2010 5:59 AM

This is a government ministry of Morocco report. Moroccans refer to tar sands and oil shale almost interchangeably, and even refer to Alberta's giant "oil shale" mines.

--M

Morocco Oil Shale Deposits, an Alternative Oil Source Following Oil Spill in US Golf
Thursday, May 20 2010 11:43

China's oilsands plans no concern
By Markus Ermisch, Calgary Sun
June 9, 2010

China’s increased appetite for Alberta’s oilsands shouldn’t ring alarm bells in Ottawa, says a market observer.

“Supply will always be controlled by the country where the supplies are,” Tim Marchant, a professor of energy and geopolitics at the International Institute for Resource Industries and Sustainability Studies, said during a panel discussion at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary on Tuesday.

Oil sands output set for takeoff, CAPP predicts

New projects to boost production as they return from backburner

By Dina O'Meara, Calgary Herald June 10, 2010

CALGARY - New oilsands projects and investments have changed Canada's long-range supply picture for the better, according to a new industry report.

The emergence of several new players in Alberta's oilsands will lift overall crude production between 2020 and 2025, a period that wasn't expected to see any production gains in last year's forecast, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Wednesday.

Gulf spill's ripples felt at petroleum show

Oilpatch Keeping Tabs On Leak

By Dan Healing
Calgary Herald
June 9, 2010

The subsea wellhead display at the FMC Technologies booth at the Global Petroleum Show in Calgary is a tiny, perfect, clean representation of what a deepsea drilling environment should be.

But the display, with spindly threads representing pipes and cables leading from bright yellow miniature wellheads to ships and platforms floating above on a plate of glass, was designed long before the horrors of the BP oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.