Prime Minister Stephen Harper declared last week he didn’t want to see Canada’s economy “bought and controlled by foreign governments.” But he apparently has no problem with PetroChina’s $2.18 billion entry into Alberta’s natural gas sector.
That’s the value of a deal announced Thursday – one that will see a subsidiary of the Chinese state-owned company purchase a 49.9 percent stake in Encana’s Duvernay shale development.
The announcement came less than a week after Harper approved a $15.1 billion takeover of Alberta oil sands producer Nexen by CNOOC, another oil and gas giant controlled by the Communist government.
The Prime Minister said at the time the acquisition marked “not the beginning of a trend, but rather the end of a trend.”
“Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only to see them bought and controlled by foreign governments instead,” Harper said.
Thursday’s deal between PetroChina and Encana differs in that it gives the Chinese company a non-controlling interest in a specific natural gas development, rather than ownership of an entire Canadian company.
It’s a significant deal nonetheless. “A transaction of this magnitude,” Encana president and CEO Randy Eresman said in a statement, “enables us to accelerate the pace at which the full production potential of our Duvernay lands can be achieved.”
The effects of the deal may someday be felt in B.C. PetroChina plans to help build a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in Kitimat, on the province’s west coast.
B.C.’s natural gas industry is expanding so fast that premier Christy Clark recently remarked that, "energy output from LNG will likely be as big as the total energy output today from the oilsands.”
It’s not clear whether the natural gas from PetroChina’s new joint venture will be exported through the Kitimat terminal. But Encana, whose former CEO and President Gwyn Morgan is now a political advisor to premier Clark, appears to see a connection.
“[Joint ventures] have the potential to increase natural gas demand,” reads the Encana statement announcing the PetroChina deal. “A number of Encana's partners are actively exploring opportunities to export liquefied natural gas (LNG).”
Geoff Dembicki reports on climate change and energy for The Tyee.
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Hugh
23 weeks ago
China Investment Corp may be
China Investment Corp may be buying part of Island Timberlands, which owns roughly 8% of the land area of Vancouver Island.
http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/183066011.html
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
Canada is For Sale.
Traitors all of them. In the interests of globalization everything is for sale. Soon we will all be mere tenants in our once proud country.
Cool Hand
23 weeks ago
Common Sense Transaction
Encana is having major cash flow problems and is also attempting to obtain jv partners in several of its stakes in their U.S. basins. They haven't been able to do a deal south of the border.
However, Alberta's Duvernay basin is a "liquids rich" basin. IOW, natural gas liquids are priced near a barrel of oil, which supplements the "dry" natural gas that flows in conjunction with the liquids. Lucrative in terms of cash-flow.
And these ng fields require $billions$ for continued development. Encana doesn't have the deep pockets. Petro-China does.
More importantly, Petro-China is seeking to supplement its other BC natural gas interests for future supply to the Shell/Mitsubishi/Korea Gas/Petro-China lng terminal in Kitimat.
That's why they did the deal.
Curious. Why are people here complaining? The natural gas is obtained through fraccing, which most people on this site are against anyways. And it's not Canada's resource. It's Alberta's both legally and constitutionally.
If ya have a problem with this deal, go move to Alberta and make your voice known.
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
Horse&%#t!
We have heard enough apologies of the the globalization advocates. We sell our resources to countries who make cheap plastic crap and sell it back to us. This undermines our manufacturing industry and out jobs, reduces the taxes collected so right wing shills can tell us that we need to tighten our belts, pay more taxes so we can become more competitive on the global scene. It is a never ending stream of horses#@t propaganda from those who want to make a quick buck while the rest live in poverty. Hang them all as the traitors that they are or send them on a slow boat to China where they can become citizens of that country.
Cool Hand
23 weeks ago
Skywalker
The highest standard of living in Canada is in Alberta:
1. No PST;
2. No Medical Service Premiums;
3. Highest consumer purchasing power in Canada;
4. Lowest tax rates in Canada;
5. Highest public infrastructure investments in canada;
6. Highest wages in public sector/private sector in Canada;
I can go on and on.
Why? Because of the global energy giants from the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Turn that massive capital tap off and Alberta will become another miserable version of Greece.
The looney left never seizes to amaze me. Too funny.
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
Too funny?
Hard to imagine the level of intelligence that thinks selling off the resources in the province is the road to wealth. Nothing in your deflection of issues explains why it is necessary to make foreign investors rich just so a temporary illusion of wealth is created. Never ceases to amaze how the looney right clings to idiotic ideology.
Highest standard of living? By what standard do you measure and why don't you just move there and spare us the aggravation of having to respond?
Skywalker
23 weeks ago
And another thing Lukie..
On another post you wrote,
"As a matter of fact, within the NDP caucus, many of his own people call him "Voldemort".
Too funny."
That was two lies. The first is not true and the second is sick. Now post a picture of yourself and let's see who you look like. That could be "too funny".
pwlg
23 weeks ago
tip of an iceberg
China in 2009 declared that it would expand its foreign economic interests by using the $2.2 trillion US Treasury notes it owns to purchase strategic resources.
Expect more of this!
Can you say Ridley Terminals in Prince Rupert?
Cool Hand
22 weeks ago
Skywalker
Kindly provide some evidence that these 2 facts are "lies"!! I certainly await that evidence with bated breath. haha
Hmmmmmmm..... K.....
http://images.wikia.com/powerlisting/images/9/93/Al-Bundy.jpg
Skywalker
22 weeks ago
Fact is Cool Hand...
..you don't know any of "his own people" as they wouldn't even associate with anyone of your ilk and nobody calls him Voldemort except you. That is two lies and the fact that you would post such silliness is sick. Too sick for words.
Skywalker
22 weeks ago
pwlg
My thought when I heard this was, "who would make sure that the port had proper security". If we can't even keep control of our entry points, just imagine the potential for all kinds of nefarious enterprises.
G West
22 weeks ago
Lukie
Why don't YOU post a picture of yourself?
You're the dude who's always going around making personal comments about folks here at the Tyee and elsewhere - don't you have the courage to identify yourself so one can judge the quality of your own 'information'?
Frankly, I simply don't read anything you write here with anything but a laugh because you're nothing but a bad joke.
Van Isle
22 weeks ago
I thought the basics of good
I thought the basics of good common sense is; 'sell the milk, not the cow, nor the farm'. We have a collection of dunderhead elites who only think of the short term gain. What baffoons.
Hugh
22 weeks ago
What I find insulting is the
What I find insulting is the idea that Canada is too poor to develop our own resources. And we are too dumb to learn how to work in mines. What a pathetic lot we are!
Cool Hand
22 weeks ago
Skywalker
Sensitive about the "Dear Leader" Dix are we?!
Au contraire. A bud of mine is the prez of a BC public sector union local. A leadership campaign supporter of Adrian Dix, albeit doesn't elevate him to the God status that you do.
Also is involved heavily in municipal elections (pro-NDP candidates), provincial elections/BC NDP conventions (union spends big bucks for him in a hotel in downtown Van City) as well as federal elections/federal NDP conventions (again union spends big bucks to fly him across country/hotel).
Very well connected within the BC NDP and has also confirmed the Voldemort tag of Dix within NDP circles. If ya call these hardcore NDPer's "sick" then ya better vote fer somthin' else.
BTW, I have alotta fun with my NDP bud politically. He ain't no left-wing loon though.
Skywalker
22 weeks ago
Nice try Lukie but still a perfect zero.
Where have I elevated Dix to God status? Another lie? So you have one bud who is involved in municipal politics and maybe is in a union who makes comments you like but that one bud is exaggerated to "his own people." You never cease to amaze at how far you will go to cover a complete lack of understanding.
I would think that you bud, if he is real, probably does not recognize your posts her as yours. If he did, he just might start avoiding you. If he endorses you comments the he too is "to sick for words."
So by all means tell him who you are here on these posts.
tonyinvan
22 weeks ago
cool hand
How much do you get paid to undermine the progressive vote? I've seen your ilk on many mainstream media outlet. It truly is despicable to have to read the consistently false comments for the Con stipated. Perhaps we will not have to read much more of this when all of the lies your leader hand his minions come home to roost.... hopefully in time for October 2015. Hopefully, by then there won't be enough $$ in con party coffers to fund you're paid propaganda. the only good tory is a suppository
Bruno96
22 weeks ago
The Harpercrite
MUST GO!
Fritz
22 weeks ago
Selectively Speechifying
'...1. No PST; 2. No Medical Service Premiums; 3. Highest consumer purchasing power in Canada;
4. Lowest tax rates in Canada; 5. Highest public infrastructure investments in canada [sic];
6. Highest wages in public sector/private sector in Canada; I can go on and on...'
Yes we are a witness to spouting ad nauseum Cool Hand; and of course looking at where this "standard of living" is actually heading is so-o-o un-Chicago School of Enonomics' repulsively socialistic.
'While Canada built national debt, Norway parlayed oil proceeds into savings equal to $120,000 for each inhabitant.'
http://thetyee.ca/News/2012/07/25/Norway-Oil-Wealth/
No Rainy Day Fund
"PM's favourite province squandered its petro profits like a 'banana republic.'...
Deficits, foolish giveaways to corporations at the expense of taxpayers, and environmental "carnage" without funds to fix it, according to Allan Warrack, a former minister in the Alberta government...'
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/04/13/HarpersBigQuestion/
Deficit Spending
'...report from the University of Alberta's Parkland Institute says that despite a provincial deficit, the Alberta government will forgo some $55 billion in potential revenue over the next three years as a result of overly generous royalty cuts and the government's failure...'
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/parklandinstitute/2012/03/alberta-government-set-forego-55-billion-royalties-over-nex
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