David Krayden Ottawa Bureau Chief
February 24, 2020 10:23 AM ET
Canada’s Teck Resources Ltd. has withdrew its application for a $20.6 billion Alberta oil sands project because the Trudeau government’s environmental and climate change policies lack “clarity.”
In an open letter to Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change posted on the firm’s website Sunday night, the company president and CEO Don Lindsay explained, “I want to make clear that we are not merely shying away from controversy. The nature of our business dictates that a vocal minority will almost inevitably oppose specific developments.”
The oil sands, located northeast of Edmonton, are considered to be the third largest petroleum reserves in the world.
The news comes just as the Ontario Provincial Police ordered environmental extremists to remove a barricade near Belleville, Ontario Monday that had brought railway traffic to a standstill for the past three weeks. After sustained criticism and with shortages of fuel and food looming, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday that “the barricades need to come down.” (RELATED: Trudeau Has No Plan To Deal With Crisis As Natives Block Two Bridges To US)
But for Lindsay and Teck Resources, it wasn’t just about the latest protest. “We are prepared to face that sort of opposition.” It was the “broader debate over climate change and Canada’s role in addressing it” that convinced the century-old mining company to pull out.
Lindsay cautioned that the oil sands project demanded clear direction from the federal government on what sort of resource exploration it would be willing to tolerate given the current level of climate change activism. (RELATED: Counter-Protesters In Alberta Tear Down Anti-Pipeline Barricade As Trudeau Contemplates Action)
“Without clarity on this critical question, the situation … will be faced by future projects and it will be very difficult to attract future investment, either domestic or foreign,” the letter says.
The company said it will take a $1.13-billion loss on the project that could have created 9,500 jobs in the Canadian oil and gas sector from construction to petroleum extraction. The federal government was expecting more than $70 billion in revenue from the project.
Their decisions to move on was made only hour after the Alberta government announced that two First Nations, originally opposed to the project, had agreed to allow the work to begin.
The Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations were concerned about potential danger to bison and caribou habitats.
The deputy Prime Minister Freeland is quite silent. She was the one Trudeau sent to pacify Alberta… As a biographer of Soros, she cannot be pulling some strings there…
BTW the CBC tends to always frame this as a reconciliation issue, us versus them, trying to oppose First Nations and Canadians. This is a gross oversimplification that only serves Trudeau’s UN agenda.
In fact through the process, a majority of FN people have been supportive of the energy projects for years.
Only those in the pay of the Rockefeller Brothers and other Tides have been opposing.
One smart aboriginal leader Ellis Bross summed it up well when he said these multi national foundations have managed to have Canadians fighting each others.
This is no different than the global warming agenda, in which people are willing to cut their own noses to save the planet.
From Don Lindsay’s letter. Teck supports the federal government’s climate initiative.
“At Teck, we believe deeply in the need to address climate change and believe that Canada has an important role to play globally as a responsible supplier of natural resources. We support strong actions to enable the transition to a low carbon future. We are also strong supporters of Canada’s action on carbon pricing and other climate policies such as legislated caps for oil sands emissions.”
The letter is silent about Premier Kenney, That silent is deafening.
https://www.teck.com/news/news-releases/2020/teck-withdraws-regulatory-application-for-frontier-project
The announcement was foreshadowed. Oil is nowhere near the price to make the project viable.
From February 11:
Even if the Liberal government approves Teck Resources Ltd’s proposed Frontier oilsands project later this month, there are looming, unresolved economic questions that could determine whether the new mine is constructed.
Most notably, this includes the price of oil. A federal-provincial review panel last year noted that Teck had assumed oil prices would exceed US$95 per barrel, which is 70 per cent higher than the current West Texas Intermediate (WTI) price of about US$56 per barrel.
Last month, even Teck’s chief executive Don Lindsey expressed skepticism about the project — which would cost an estimated $20.6 billion to construct, produce 260,000 barrels of oil per day and operate for four decades — saying the fate of the project depended on ‘three Ps’: oil prices, pipeline capacity and finding the right partners.
https://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/teck-resources-needs-at-least-65-oil-and-deep-pocketed-partners-for-frontier-oilsands-mine-to-make-economic-sense
USA fracking of tight shales requires higher oil and natural gas prices to be economically viable. Shale wells have rapid decline rates and then more drilling and/or fracking is needed. Mineable oil sands projects, once built, have no significant decline rates. Production often increases significantly over time with little capital required.
2020: The Year of The Oil Bankruptcies – December 27, 2019
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/2020-The-Year-Of-The-Oil-Bankruptcies.html
Shale Slowdown Takes Economic Toll – Updated December 15, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/shale-slowdown-takes-economic-toll-11576405800
Fracking Blows Up Investors Again: Phase 2 of the Great American Shale Oil & Gas Bust – November 23, 2019
https://wolfstreet.com/2019/11/23/fracking-blows-up-again-phase-2-of-the-great-american-shale-oil-gas-bust/
As Oil Prices Drop and Money Dries Up, Is the U.S. Shale Boom Going Bust? – November 20- 2019
https://www.npr.org/2019/11/20/780879474/as-oil-prices-drop-and-money-dries-up-is-the-u-s-shale-boom-going-bust
The Great Shale Fracking Slowdown Has Arrived – November 1, 2019
https://www.forbes.com/sites/daneberhart/2019/11/01/the-great-shale-slowdown-has-arrived/#54b89c1e3755
Investors starve US shale drillers of capital – October 23, 2019
https://www.ft.com/content/187f8176-f4f4-11e9-b018-3ef8794b17c6
Shale wells are on the edge of profitability at current prices – October 10, 2019
https://www.worldoil.com/news/2019/10/10/shale-wells-are-on-the-edge-of-profitability-at-current-prices
US Shale Production Is Set for A Steep Decline – October 1, 2019
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/US-Shale-Production-Is-Set-For-A-Steep-Decline.html#
Is U.S. shale facing an ‘unmitigated disaster’? – September 19, 2019
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061136849
Oil and Gas Bankruptcies Grow as Investors Lose Appetite for Shale – August 30, 2019
https://www.wsj.com/articles/oil-and-gas-bankruptcies-grow-as-investors-lose-appetite-for-shale-11567157401
Shale Oil vs. Conventional Oil: What’s the Difference? – Updated August 8, 2019
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/051215/cost-shale-oil-versus-conventional-oil.asp
U.S. Oil Companies Find Energy Independence Isn’t So Profitable – June 30, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/30/business/energy-environment/oil-companies-profit.html
Five Years After Crude’s Collapse, Shale Patch Still Struggles – June 28, 2019
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-28/five-years-after-crude-s-collapse-shale-patch-still-struggles
Can Fracking Survive at $50 a Barrel? – Jun 25, 2019
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/072215/can-fracking-survive-60-barrel.asp
Analysis shows U.S. shale drillers still not profitable – May 31, 2019
https://ieefa.org/analysis-shows-u-s-shale-drillers-still-not-profitable/
Fracking 2.0 Was a Financial Disaster, Will Fracking 3.0 Be Different? – March 12, 2019
https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/12/shale-oil-drilling-financial-disaster-fracking-3-0
Correction: $600 million of foreign money, not $160 million.
“More than $600 million of foreign money has been spent by foreign funders like the Tides Foundation to bribe anti-pipeline groups.”
Source:
VIVIAN KRAUSE DOCUMENTARY, OVER A BARREL, RELEASED
https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/business/vivian-krause-documentary-over-a-barrel-released-1.23983003
The makers of the documentary Over a Barrel, about foreign funding of Canadian oil and gas opposition, have temporarily removed the cost to view after being “inundated by pleas for the film to be made freely available.”
The 32-minute film distills the findings of well-known researcher VIVIAN KRAUSE, WHO HAS TRACKED $600 MILLION FLOWING FROM U.S. GROUPS LIKE THE TIDES FOUNDATION AND THE ROCKEFELLER BROTHERS FUND TO SUPPORT PROGRAMS LIKE THE “TAR SANDS CAMPAIGN” TO LANDLOCK CANADIAN OIL.
See also:
March 3, 2018
HOW CANADA ENDED UP WITH JUSTIN TRUDEAU
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/03/how_canada_ended_up_with_justin_trudeau.html
Canada needs Alberta, Alberta does not need Canada. Currently, Alberta pays far and away more in tax revenue to the federal government than is returned in government spending by Ottawa. The same goes for the other 3 western provinces. Trudeau’s base is in Quebec and that province takes far more in government spending than it returns to Ottawa in revenue. If landlocked Alberta were to succeed from Canada, Trudeau would have to make up the revenue loss in order to keep up government spending in Quebec and maintain a happy support base. That means taxing the remaining 3 western provinces more and spending even less in them. The westernmost province, B.C., would be geographically cut off from the rest of the country as well. Alberta could demand access to the Pacific for it’s oil in return for access to the rest of Canada for B.C. So the other 3 western provinces would be faced with a choice, remain in high tax Canada or join low tax Alberta and keep the money they normally send to Ottawa. That’s not a hard decision to make, that also goes for Yukon and the other northern territories. The new country can then sit back, take in the economic refugees from Trudeau’s regime until they have the larger population out west. At that point they can agree to allow the rest of Canada to join the west, only with the new national capital in a place like Moose Jaw or Kicking Horse Pass.