Social Impacts

Voyageur contractors to stay home
Suncor asks workers to hold off ‘remobilizing’ in wake of plummeting oil prices
December 22, 2008
By CAROL CHRISTIAN // Today staff

Some contractors have been asked not to return to Suncor Energy right after Christmas as the company revisits its Voyageur project as oil prices sink lower than predicted.

Suncor spokesman Brad Bellows confirmed this morning the company has asked some of its contractor workforce to hold off “remobilizing” immediately after Christmas.

Bellows didn’t say how many workers would be affected.

Sunoco considering returning to the oilsands
By CAROL CHRISTIAN
Today staff

After more than a decade-long absence, Sunoco Inc. is looking to return to the Alberta oilsands by way of increased bitumen for its U.S. refineries.

Sunoco president Lynn Elsenhan outlined that business intention Monday during an analyst conference call. However, she didn’t offer any specific companies as potential partners for the Northern Alberta venture.

The company has started looking, however, and is looking long-term, according to company spokesman Thomas Golembeski.

Once-booming oilsands face uncertain future as list of cancelled projects grows
By JIM MACDONALD, The Canadian Press
December 22, 2008

EDMONTON — Thousands of workers from as far away as the Philippines are watching their jobs in Alberta evaporate as the richest oil boom in the province’s history deflates.

Sinking oil prices have forced skittish investors to hedge their bets on half a dozen multibillion-dollar oilsands projects, leaving one of the key engines of Canada’s economy teetering on an uncertain future.

Oil Sands Output Cuts Unlikely Despite Sliding Crude Price

OTTAWA (Dow Jones)--The plunge in oil prices has forced the first output cut in Canada, but shutdowns across the country's abundant oil sands are a distant prospect.

Earlier this week, Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd (CLL.T) said it will nearly halve output from its Great Divide oil sands project to 5,000 barrels a day indefinitely. The development in northern Alberta had been producing around 9,000 barrels a day of the sludgy bitumen, which sells for less than benchmark light, sweet crude due to its poor quality.

IN MY HOMETOWN: Enbridge plans new pipeline
Kevin Bonham Grand Forks Herald
Published Monday, December 22, 2008

While the controversial Keystone Pipeline is being built across North Dakota — from Hardisty, Alta., to Illinois and Oklahoma — another pipeline company continues to expand in the region.

Reflections of Fidel
The unjustifiable destruction of the environment

CAN capitalist society avoid it? News about the issue is not encouraging. In Poznan, they are discussing the project to be presented in December of next year in Copenhagen, where the agreement that will replace the Kyoto Protocol will be discussed and voted on.

Vandals target another B.C. gas pipeline
Thu Dec. 18 2008
ctvbc.ca

Vandals have targeted another set of natural gas well sites in northeastern British Columbia, but authorities aren't immediately linking the latest attacks to three earlier bombings to EnCana pipelines in October.

Const. Jackelynn Passarell said Thursday valves were tampered with and shots were fired at well sites operated by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (TSX:CNQ) and Iteration Energy (TSX:ITX).

A moving speech by Casey Camp-Horinek of the Ponca Nation in Oklahoma on the
theft and industrial devastation of their lands. Many Ponca are dying
from cancer in what is now Oklahoma´s refinery "hub". Now there are new
plans for refineries to process tar sands bitumen from Alberta.
Then, Dave Malka went to the Coalition Yes rally early in December and
collected a few interviews of attendees. Some opinions about the coalition
you might have missed on the mainstream radio.

http://www.cjsr.ualberta.ca/news/news.php?s=riseup

Downloadable link:

Industry upset over JRP deadline
Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Published Monday, December 15, 2008

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Reaction to news that the Joint Review Panel will not have its report on the embattled Mackenzie Gas Project ready until December 2009 has been uniformly negative and in some cases incredulous.

"You've got to be kidding" was the initial reaction of Ann Marie Tout, president of the NWT Chamber of Commerce.

Thumbs down: Oil slick

by Editors Dec 10, 2008

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management is refusing a request by the Post-Tribune in Merrillville to provide a calendar showing when meetings were held dealing with the BP oil refinery’s air permit. IDEM approved a construction permit for BP in May, but environmentalists say it was improperly granted. IDEM has refused to release information on meetings leading up to the approval twice now — and has given two different excuses. The Post-Tribune is appealing.

http://www.nuvo.net/articles/thumbs_down__oil_slick/