Economics drive tar sands operations. Record highs in oil prices, though still fluctuating, will make tar sand oil ‘economical’ (read: profitable) well into the future. Government subsidies to this environmentally disastrous process remain in place from a time when the federal government was sponsoring research into the possibility of recovering this oil. Stock prices of tar sands developers grow the more conventional oil is scarce.
Green groups ramp up attacks on oil sands
Claudia Cattaneo, Calgary Bureau Chief, Financial Post Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008
CALGARY - Environmental organizations in Canada and the United States are stepping up their campaign to derail Alberta's oil sands and seeking funding from deep-pocketed endowments, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Obama no threat to oil sands: Canadian Natural Resources
Carrie Tait, Financial Post
November 11, 2008
CALGARY -- Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. does not expect US president-elect Barack Obama to implement policies that would crush Alberta's oil sands industry, even though he made anti-oil promises on the campaign trail.
Réal Cusson, senior vice-president of marketing, made the assertion while explaining that it is cheaper for oil sands companies to ship their bitumen to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast for processing than it would be to build new upgraders in Alberta.
Energy consumption up across the board in 2007: StatsCan
Canadian Press
November 18, 2008
OTTAWA — A new study says Canada's demand for energy rose 5.5 per cent last year as consumption increased in the country's industrial, transportation, residential and commercial sectors.
Statistics Canada reports Canadians consumed 7,968 petajoules of energy in 2007, up from 7,551 in 2006.
The agency says one petajoule equals roughly the amount of energy required to operate the Montreal subway system for one year.
Sands shifting under Alberta oil sector
Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
November 18, 2008
CALGARY -- Environmental organizations in Canada and the United States are stepping up their campaign to derail Alberta's oil sands and seeking funding from deep-pocketed endowments including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Petro Canada is the "official energy supplier" to the Olympics. Perhaps that could shelve that disastrous project as well?
--M
Petrocan syndicate puts Fort Hills on ice
Consortium shelves oil sands project, citing global financial turmoil, lower oil prices and high financing costs
NORVAL SCOTT
November 18, 2008
CALGARY -- The Fort Hills oil sands project was going to turn Petro-Canada into a contender.
Its 140,000 barrels a day of new crude output would end years of underperformance. No longer would Petrocan's share price lag those of its peers.
by John Michael Greer
The Archdruid Report (November 12 2008)
Druid perspectives on nature, culture, and the future of industrial society
The weekend before the election, as I mentioned in last week's post
here, I went to Michigan to attend a peak oil conference: the Fifth
Annual Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions, to give it its
full moniker. In more ways than one, it provided me with a wide-angle
snapshot of one end of the peak oil movement; since the peak oil story
is as much about human responses to geological realities as it is about
Enbridge Gateway pipeline back on track in B.C.
Customers demanding new facilities despite sliding oil price
Scott Simpson, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, November 13, 2008
Enbridge Inc. is shrugging off the effects of a sagging world economy to restart its dormant Northern Gateway pipelines project in British Columbia and Alberta.
Northern Gateway Pipelines communications director Neil Sweeney said in an interview that the project, which bore a $4.5-billion price tag when it was suspended in 2006, is likely to be submitted to the National Energy Board in 2009.
Oil Slow Down Will Not Stop TransCanada
Gas prices dropped another nickel in Sioux Falls Wednesday as the price for a barrel of oil fell to 56 dollars. While the falling oil prices are good news for drivers, its not so good news for oil producers in Canada. Canadian crude is more costly to produce than regular oil, so when the price goes down so do profits.
Because Canadian crude is so costly to produce the falling oil prices are slowing production in northern Alberta.
And that's why both TransCanada and Hyperion are keeping their eyes on the oil industry north of the border.
Power companies plan for oil pipeline
By Joelyn Hansen/Daily Sun staff writer
Tuesday, Nov 11, 2008 - 09:02:10 am CST
DILLER -- Norris Public Power District and the Nebraska Public Power District hosted a public open house in Diller on Monday to provide information and collect input on plans to build a 115,000 volt (115 kV) transmission line from Harbine to Steele City to enable operation of a $5.2 billion crude oil pipeline to be built through Nebraska.
Big Oil's Pipe Dream
An interview with Dustin Johnson about the Gateway Pipeline
November 13, 2008
by Dawn Paley
The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca
PRINCE RUPERT and VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA–The Gateway Pipeline Project, proposed by Calgary-based Enbridge Gateway Pipelines Inc., would snake through the unceded territories of over 40 Native communities. If fully developed, the Gateway Pipeline would transport a half-million barrels of oil per day from Alberta's tar sands through sensitive ecosystems of BC's northwest coast.
