Energy

Budget triples for Mackenzie Valley review panel
SHAWN MCCARTHY AND NATHAN VANDERKLIPPE
March 16, 2009

OTTAWA and CALGARY -- The budget for the panel reviewing the proposed $16-billion Mackenzie Valley Pipeline has nearly tripled amid delays that have frustrated industry and government, an internal federal report says.

The report from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency says the Joint Review Panel's costs have risen to $18-million, from the original budget of $6.8-million when it was established in the summer of 2004.

CNRL PR: First oil produced at Horizon project

ALBERTA — The first synthetic crude oil from the Horizon oil sands project was produced on Feb. 28, 2009, reported owner Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNRL). The event marked four years of construction work.

Double talk on tar sands
Mar 01, 2009 04:30 AM
Toronto Star

Alberta's tar sands have always been a political hot potato. Now they are being tarred by no less an authority than National Geographic as a blight on the boreal forests and a pox on the planet.

There is something about being featured in foreign publications that captures the attention of Canadians unlike anything else. Now, federal politicians are weighing in with alacrity, if not quite clarity, about the place of the tar sands in Canada's future.

Tarsands are an addiction
By SILVER DONALD CAMERON
Sun. Mar 15 - 6:22 AM

THE ALBERTA tarsands, says Andrew Nikiforuk, represent "a nation-changing event" which has made the rest of Canada into "a suburb of Fort McMurray." A distinguished Calgary-based journalist, Nikiforuk was in Nova Scotia in early March to discuss his new book, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (Greystone, $20).

TransCanada files plans for its second oil pipeline
By Bob Mercer
State Capitol Bureau

PIERRE -- TransCanada Keystone Pipeline company has applied to the state Public Utilities Commission for a permit to construct its second crude-oil pipeline through South Dakota, this time through the sparsely populated ranch country west of the Missouri River.

The Calgary-based company’s construction timetable calls for work to begin in South Dakota in 2011 and service to begin in 2012, with a peak construction work force of up to 1,400 people during the months of May through August of 2011.

Trinidad and Tobago to study tar sands viability
Curtis Williams
OGJ Correspondent

PORT OF SPAIN, Mar. 10 -- Trinidad and Tobago has awarded a license to Petroleum Co. of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd. to explore tar sands at Parrylands-Guapo fields, which are thought to contain 2 billion bbl of oil. The fields are just south of the La Brea Pitch Lake.

‘Tar sands are killing us’
Cree, Metis, Dene tell Sen. John Kerry
By Kate Harries, Today correspondent

Story Published: Mar 11, 2009

TORONTO – Dene, Cree and Metis activists from First Nations affected
by Alberta tar sands development made themselves heard in Washington
as Canadian Environment Minister Jim Prentice was making the rounds of
Capitol Hill.

They hand-delivered a letter to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., head of the
powerful Foreign Relations Committee, and later about 50 young people

Climate Alarm: Scientists call emergency meeting
March 2nd, 2009

Last summer, for the first time in human history, boats could circumnavigate the North Pole. To the oblivious observer, this might seem like a good thing. Perhaps some green entrepreneur will build resorts on Finland’s Svalbard Islands. However, as we know, there’s a dark side.

Alberta urged to halt oilpatch water use
By Hanneke Brooymans,
Canwest News Service
February 9, 2009

A water-scarce future means Alberta should switch from coal-fired power to renewable energy, dismiss the idea of nuclear power, and dramatically reduce the oilpatch's water use by 2020, says a new Pembina Institute report.

One-third of all water allocated in the province in 2007 was for energy production, says the report, being released today.

The Canadian oil sands dilemma
March 1, 2009
by John Guerrerio,
Energy Examiner

Giant grinders loosen layers of dirt and sand to get to the oil below.