The tarsands are only economical at a certain price per barrel. The attacks on Iraq and Somalia, along with threats against Venezuela, Iran and elsewhere all combine to drive that price up. This significantly leaves the US economic structures able to tighten their control on oil distribution around the world as they de-diversify their oil imports to heavy reliance on tarsand (mock) oil, growing in percentage at a incredible pace. Canada is ever more integrating this (mock) oil into the North American grid, at the behest of both Canadian and American corporations. While Iraq's oil is disrupted often, Canada has no national reserve system and the corporations are aiming to extract up to 25% of American economical daily requirements from the tarsands in less than a decade. With NAFTA Expanding into the "Security and Prosperity Partnership" (SPP) more and more of these policies become removed from the public realm and help maintain exploitation and war on the planet and people within it by a tag team of nation-states from North America.
Nexen, Opti Canada May Be Targeted in Oil-Sands Deals
By Joe Carroll
April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Nexen Inc. and Opti Canada Inc. may be among Canadian oil companies targeted for takeovers as a price collapse triggers a rush by larger producers to amass holdings in the biggest crude deposits outside Saudi Arabia.
Becoming No. 1: Suncor's story
March 23, 2009
CBC News
If the deal goes down, one of the first companies to pull oil from the sticky tar sands of Alberta is about to become Canada's biggest energy company and the fifth-largest in North America.
Suncor and Petro-Canada plan a merger that would give the company a market capitalization of $43.3-billion US. For comparison, energy giants Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips are worth about $326.6 billion and $55.97 billion, respectively.
What is Suncor?
Abu Dhabi National Said to Be Chasing Canadian Deals
By Joe Carroll
March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Abu Dhabi National Energy Co., the Persian Gulf petroleum and power producer known as Taqa, is hunting for acquisitions in Canada’s tar sands, home of the world’s second-largest crude deposits outside Saudi Arabia, according to two people involved in the search.
Taqa is assessing multiple potential targets that extract crude from Canada’s oil-soaked bogs and river valleys, according to people who asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to make the information public.
Yesterday's fuel, yesterday's deal
The real 'crude' in Suncor's takeover of Petro-Canada — long stripped of its Canada-first credentials — is the push to deliver ever more 20th-century fossil fuels when the world is moving to renewables
GORDON LAXER
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
March 25, 2009
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).
Military keeping low profile during 2010 Olympics
By: Jennifer Ditchburn, THE CANADIAN PRESS
2/03/2009
OTTAWA - The Canadian military wants to keep a low profile when it comes
to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, and that includes keeping its
budget in check and out of the headlines.
Vice-Admiral Dean McFadden, commander of Canadian military operations at
home, underlined to a Commons committee Monday that "Operation
Podium" has so far stayed within its budget of $212 million for
specific military duties.
Harper rolls dice to play oil sands 'wild card'
Mar 02, 2009
Tyler Hamilton
ENERGY REPORTER
Canada's oil and gas sector is a crucial engine of our economy and isn't going away, so any technologies that help reduce or capture emissions are both welcome and necessary.
But can these technologies help us right now, particularly to justify rapid expansion of oil-sands projects? And, taken alone, are they enough?
Crude Business in Colombia
Alberta's oil and gas sector gets behind the Free Trade push
February 25, 2009
by Dawn Paley
BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA–When Minister of International Trade Stockwell Day
signed the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in Peru on
November 21, it was a happy day for Canada’s oil and gas sector, but
the deal was celebrated by its signatories as a landmark for human
rights and democracy in Colombia.
“Deepening both economic and political engagement between our
countries is the best way Canadians can support the citizens of
Tories, Liberals defend oil sands
Feb 25, 2009
THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA – Conservatives and Liberals both came to the defence of Alberta's oilsands today, responding to a stark 20-page spread in this month's National Geographic magazine.
The article, "The Canadian oil boom: Scraping the bottom," details the environmental and social problems around the oilsands, as well as an explanation of the extraction process.
TransCanada has eyes on California as possible future market
CALGARY - TransCanada Corp. (TSX:TRP) sees California as a potential future market for Canadian crude oil, an executive with the Calgary-based pipeline giant said Tuesday.
The company has a long-term proposal to ship crude from Northern Alberta's oilsands region down to energy-hungry California, said Steve Becker, TransCanada's vice-president of pipeline development.
