Topic
Nikiforuk's latest ENERGY & EQUITY column includes a clip and send to-do list for decision makers.
'To think the real problem in the tar sands is PR is a mistake,' says PR pro Jim Hoggan.
PR pro Jim Hoggan picks a fight with the climate change deniers.
Bruce Carson was the 'grey-haired sage' linking PM Harper to oil lobby. Now he's accused of influence peddling for a young former prostitute. Latest in a series.
James Hoggan's book documents how petro-money finances confusion with the planet at stake.
Every year Gallup publishes a poll on the popularity of 25 industries and every one, sure as rain, ranks the oil and gas industry at the bottom of the list.
While the computer industry, restaurants and farming generally get positive reviews, banking, real estate and the petroleum industry all languish in a swamp of negativity. Nobody, it seems, trusts Big Oil.
Yet Canadian and Alberta politicians still think that they can polish away all the dirt and toxic waste associated with the tar sands (the world's largest earth-moving project) with a growing mound of PR.
Almost all of this spin doctoring highlights the words "clean" or "responsible" and talks about a totally fictional country called "the foremost clean energy superpower." The only people who live in this wonderful petropolis appear to be Tory cabinet ministers and Big Oil lobbyists.
Just last month, for example, Geoff Dembicki, an intrepid Tyee contributor, reported that the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade was thinking about hiring a PR firm to help its "Pan European Oil Sands Team" lobby for Big Oil and develop "a serious public advocacy strategy" for bitumen.
But Jim Hoggan, a PR guy who runs an award winning communication firm in Vancouver and started DeSmogBlog, argues that's just another big, dumb idea. "I think the entire communications strategy is misguided. To think the real problem in the tar sands is PR is a mistake."
Scraping goo and spinning it
Now anyone with an ear or an eye has been exposed to relentless Big Oil propaganda on the tar sands as well as some wonky green stuff too. But Big Oil has tried the hardest and spent the most to convince ordinary people that nothing extraordinary is happening in the world's largest engineering project.
Consider the splashy campaign unveiled by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) last year.
One cheery communication compared the viscosity of bitumen, an ultra heavy crude, to peanut butter. Bitumen definitely looks, feels and behaves like asphalt but it sure as hell doesn't taste like peanut butter.
In fact bitumen has yet to appear on the parliamentary cafeteria menu for a reason. The first Canadian politician to spread raw bitumen on his toast will loose his or her teeth if not a few internal organs. The tarry stuff contains sharp sand particles as abrasive as diamonds.
Another audacious PR message compared reclaiming a 40-metre-deep hole as big as the state of Delaware (the mine-able portion of the project) to farming. "I grew up on a farm," says one serious looking worker. "I know what I means to have the land restored."
Well, when mining becomes farming (and much oil-based agriculture has become such), civilizations just die. The fact that Alberta taxpayers now shoulder $15-billion worth of outstanding reclamation liabilities for the world’s wealthiest companies doesn’t appear in the message either.
Another snappy ad says that 80 per cent of the water used by the tar sands is recycled. That's true. But it doesn't mention that recycling this water concentrates pollutants such as salts and chlorides that foul processing machinery and that, well, make it harder to reclaim the landscape. Half truths sell better than whole truths.
But my favorite compared the consistency of 6 billion barrels of mining waste (that's enough toxic material to stretch to the moon and back 15 times) to yoghurt. Bitumen slurry, which smells like swamp gas, contains many inedible things: cyanide, bitumen, toluene, clay, benzene, mercury, hydrogen sulfide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and naphthenic acids. But, sadly, yoghurt is not among the ingredients.
An empire of web sites
Now the problem with these ads, aside from lamely trying to associate an earth-destroying mining complex with a hellish carbon footprint to feel-good items like peanut butter, farming and yoghurt, is their total ineptness, says Hoggan.
For starters all the ads omit the obvious. If Total, Statoil and other companies can call bitumen an extreme, difficult and nasty resource, then why are Big Oil and Ottawa still talking about ethical peanut butter? "These ads only reinforce in the mind of the public that the industry doesn't care," says Hoggan.
Hoggan also thinks industry's astroturfing is mighty counterproductive too. Take a look at AlbertaIsEnergy.Ca, a fake grassroots website seemingly funded by "bakers, mechanics, sales people, store owners" and the like.
But the Saudi-like oil promotion site is really bankrolled by CAPP, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and some of the most powerful organizations in the province. Another key funder is Alberta Enterprise Group, the propaganda and lobbying arm of Alberta's notoriously corrupt Progressive Conservative Party. (It has ruled the province for 40 years.)
The proliferation of these "Clean Bitumen" websites is extraordinary. They include the fore-mentioned Alberta Enterprise Group, which tells Americans that the industry has "top-notch environmental performance"; the Canada's Oil Sands, another CAPP initiative; the ever-eager In Situ Oil Sands Alliance which says the world demands "affordable and responsible energy" and the Oil Sands Developers Group, which promises that technology will clean everything up.
A tangle of uncritical websites that promotes a rosy view of industry, however, won't harvest any blooms for a development that annually coughs up 5 million tonnes of petroleum coke on the landscape, says Hoggan. Denying the real environment record or obfuscating climate change issues doesn't achieve anything except employing more PR flacks, says the communicator.
(Take note reader: According to The Economist, spin doctors now outnumber journalists six to one. So for every lowly reporter out there trying to find the truth or just get by with mediocrity [yes, we are a declining trade], they must compete against the energy of six flacks or spin doctors trying to peddle half-truths, business-as-usual popsicles or outrageous lies. This media imbalance is just as unprecedented and unsustainable as digging up two tonnes of sand to make the world's most expensive barrel of oil.)
It's not PR, it's policy
Outside the corrupt corridors of energy PR, a few industry leaders have admitted the truth. Clive Mather, former CEO of Shell Canada, said last year that "We have not done a good job in the oil sands, either in environmental performance or in communication. And we've got a big problem. It's not life-threatening, but it could be."
The evidence solidly supports Mather. In 2010, the Royal Society of Canada, no green group, concluded that "the environmental regulatory capacity of Alberta and Canadian governments does not appear to have kept pace with the rapid growth of the oil sands industry" and that environmental assessments were sloppy. In 2011, the Alberta Water Monitoring Data Review Committee and Environment Canada bluntly reported that "the current monitoring system did not deliver data of sufficient quantity or quality to detect or quantify the effects of oil sands development."
There's more. The Oil Sands Research and Information Network (OSRIN), a group funded by Alberta Environment no less, warned last year that industry might lose its social license to operate without substantive reforms. Without addressing environmental issues as varied as groundwater contamination, aboriginal health, reclamation, mining waste and acid rain, Canada and the oil sands industry will find it increasingly difficult "to operate, access markets and access capital to invest in oil sands," warned OSRIN.
The group added that "improvements in the current monitoring and reporting system are urgently required." But you won't find that in a CAPP advertisement.
Not surprisingly Hoggan thinks Mather, ORSIN and other critics understand the importance of deeds not words. "If industry wants to be taken seriously, it needs to work first on its performance."
How oil industry image has fared over past decade.
In addition it needs to step out of Alberta's petro state group-think and breathe some real oxygen. "There is a value to stepping out of friendly circles and looking at these issues from a different perspective," adds Hoggan, a Calgary native.
In his book Do the Right Thing, the well-known communicator lay down the basic rules for securing a good reputation:
• Do the Right Thing
• Be seen to be Doing the Right Thing
• Don't Get #1 and #2 Mixed Up
But Ottawa, Edmonton and CAPP have got number 1 and number 2 hopelessly confused, says Hoggan. "They reversed everything." Until they get the order right and focus on performance, such a national climate change program that actually lowers emissions or an oil sands monitoring program that really measures industry contaminants, then the project will remain in a grand global black hole of its own making.
"Any strategy that says the environmental impact of the tar sands is not a problem and that the public are misinformed and that the critics are all wrong will just fail and make the problem worse," explains Hoggan.
He recalls that pulp mill companies in Howe Sound in the 1980s behaved pretty much like tar sands firms. They denied, dismissed and deflected criticism about dioxins and furans and other toxic pollution. They even tried to minimize the problem. But their PR campaign failed and "they were stuck with a $5-billion clean-up bill."
Ruining Canada's reputation
The perverse desire to look clean without cleaning up or to sound right without doing right is probably an inherited trait in the oil patch.
John D. Rockefeller set the tone back in the late 19th century when he built Standard Oil. Rockefeller, an inaccessible and cold character, swallowed his competitors with unscrupulous business practices and much secrecy notes Daniel Yergin in The Prize, a big book on oil. Rockefeller's motto, which petro states and companies like BP still take to heart, was "expose as little surface as possible."
Moreover the oligarch never answered critics and truly believed "it's not the business of the public to change our private contracts."
That approach nearly ruined Standard Oil. And industry's and Ottawa's PR campaigns for the tar sands may well ruin Canada's international reputation too.
CLIP AND SEND THIS TO-DO LIST
Canadians interested in doing the right thing in the oil sands can clip the following to-do list. Send it to your MP, your favorite oil executive, or even CAPP. Tell them to stop the bullshit and do the right thing.
Critical Oil Sands Performance Issues Requiring Immediate Action
☐ slow down (you can't be responsible or improve performance by speeding up)
☐ an aquatic monitoring program for the Lower Athabasca River Basin run by Canadian government scientists that uses robust sampling design, consistent methodological techniques and standardized reporting
☐ an acid rain monitoring program for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba jointly run by the governments of Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, First Nations, cottagers and the federal government.
☐ comprehensive baseline monitoring for groundwater and surface water for north-eastern Alberta and north-western Saskatchewan
☐ mapping of all critical aquifers in three oil sands deposits along with effective regional groundwater monitoring by Environment Canada
☐ mandatory reporting of naphthenic acids, a key oil sands pollutant, to the National Pollutant Release Inventory
☐ placement of naphthenic acids on the Petroleum Sector Stream Approach Substances List
☐ human health study for the community of Fort Chip (given conclusive evidence for contamination of the Athabasca River with heavy metals, bitumen and cancer-causing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons [PAHs])
☐ annual GHG emission trend reporting on a project-by-project basis in the oil sands by Environment Canada
☐ an immediate and comprehensive cumulative ecological study on projected bitumen production of 3 to 6-million barrels a day and its impact air, water, regional ecosystems and human health.
☐ risk assessments for technological and natural disasters in oil sands
☐ a study on the socio-economic impact of the project that details risks and public liabilities as recommended by the Canadian parliament in 2007
☐ a central repository of regional environmental, community health, and infrastructure data that provides effective public access. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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Jeffrey J.
1 year ago
Thank You Again Andrew Nikiforuk
Every update on the oily disaster known as the Alberta Tar Sands brings more facts to light. This weeks essay is a good example, demonstrating the sole effort of the oil industry is to put more PR spin on the problem.
But the problem remains: the Alberta Tar Sands are a complete and total environmental disaster. Full stop.
If we are to survive, the project must be stopped. Immediately. Or else.
Great coverage!
tshipton
1 year ago
Alberta Enterprise Group
Andrew,
Thank you very much for the mention and the link to our web site. It's much appreciated. I would however like to state, for the record, the Alberta Enterprise Group is an independent not-for-profit organization. We're funded by our members and proceeds from our events. We're governed by a volunteer Board of Directors. Our members represent every sector of the Canadian economy -- from small bulk fertilizer dealers and restaurant owners to large-scale energy producers. In fact, the vast majority of our members are in non-oil and gas sectors.
In future we'd appreciate it, if only out of respect for our members, that you avoid making baseless statements about our dynamic and growing organization. Perhaps you could extend to us the courtesy of a phone call before making assumptions?
Thank you,
Tim Shipton
President
Alberta Enterprise Group
Jeffrey J.
1 year ago
Alberta Enterprise Group: The Usual Suspects
The Alberta Enterprise Group list of Directors reads like all astroturf organizations, funded by industry who have direct connections with keeping the tarsands pumping. Just because some of its corporate sponsors aren't 'directly' energy producers means nothing. No surprises here:
"The Alberta Enterprise Group is pleased to present controversial author, activist and media pundit Ezra Levant. Mr. Levant will discuss his latest book “Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada’s Oil Sands.” Canada's "no. 1 defender of freedom of speech" and the best-selling author of Shakedown makes the timely and provocative case that when it comes to oil, ethics matter just as much as the economy and the environment."
Alberta Enterprise Group Directors:
Mr. Cal Nichols, Chairman, Gasland Group of Companies
Ms. Karyn Decore, President, Decore Hotels
Mr. Tim Goltz, Vice President, Integrated Management & Realty Group
Mr. Gary Kalynchuk, General Manager, Hope Bay Mining Project
Mr. Don Lutzak, Owner, Central Care Medical Pharmacy
Mr. Rob Iwaschuk, Partner, Avison Young
Mr. John Moquin, Vice President, Inland Cement
Mr. Bruno Muller, Owner, Caron Transportation Ltd.
Mr. Terry O’Flynn, President, PrismFlow Products
Mr. Rod Ruston, President & CEO, North American Construction Group
Mr. Brian Wyatt, Partner, NEWAD Media Inc.
Mr. Michael Donovan, President, DONOVAN Creative Communications
Mr. John Moland, Owner, J.T. Moland Insurance Consulting
Birch
1 year ago
First class assessment, Mr. Nikiforuk!
Those interested in further comments on PR from Mr. Hoggan might look into his book CLIMATE COVER-UP, in which the machinations of Frank Lutz (a PR guru from the States whom Harper has consulted) are exposed. These efforts were designed to get GW Bush re-elected in 2004 by blunting environmental criticism.
reallife
1 year ago
Oil Sands Benefits
Before you buy into this typical Nikiforuk rant consider that the oil sands development pours a huge amount of money into the federal and provincial coffers from royalties and taxes, including income taxes paid by the thousands of high income workers. Although most Tyee readers do not have to look to the oil sands for employment, it is still important to those of you who collect welfare or pensions. Secondly, before you decry the toxicity cited by Nikiforuk, remember that these materails are already there. The bitumen is being removed and the remaining sand and water is left behind.
1timeatbandcamp
1 year ago
Alberta Enterprise Group
It is my opinion that the amount money that this "grassroot" company spends on it's media warroom and interweb scrubbing would be an amount that us chattering classes would consider staggering.
bulk fertilizer dealers, indeed
oeanda
1 year ago
reallife:
So you contend that uranium is harmless to humans because it was always in the ground, and we just happened to dig it up?
Skywalker
1 year ago
Nikiforuk does not rant!
Which is more than I can say about anyone who makes the claim that he does. I agree with the others who find his work very informative and accurate.
alda
1 year ago
My laughable favorites were
My laughable favorites were the full page ads in the Calgary Herald featuring attractive looking women (wholesome, soccer mom types) defending the critical importance of their oilpatch jobs to the Alberta economy.
After all, women that pretty (one a biologist, to boot) couldn't possibly be a sell-outs working in an industry whose by-products will endanger the very future of their own children and grandchildren, could they????
tshipton
1 year ago
Alberta Enterprise Group
Hi Folks:
I am really glad their is interest in the Alberta Enterprise Group.
I can tell you that we are anything but "big business".
Our membership is representative of the majority of business that occurs in Alberta - small-to-medium sized.
I would be more than happy to meet with Andrew or any of the blog posters (as long as you're serious) and take you through our organization's make up and history.
We may not agree on policy regarding the oil sands, but I do request you give our organization a fair shake. Our members are great community builders and they want what is best for Alberta and Canada.
Anyway, I look forward to more comment and welcome any input you may have:
tshipton@albertaenterprise.ca
Thanks, Tim
G West
1 year ago
Just one small quibble - maybe it's not so SMALL...
It's about using Jim Hoggan as a reference.
Hoggan, British Columbians will recall from the last provincial election, is far from what one could call a fair or 'neutral' observer of the political ebb and flow in this province.
While I won't question his bona fides as an expert in the practice of public relations, nor have I much to criticize about what he has to say about the climate change denial 'lobby', I can't help but remember his 'involvement' with the BCLiberal campaign to elect Gordon Campbell's government in the 2009 election.
On the basis of his record then, which amounted to total blindness about the ineffectual and inequitable Campbell 'Carbon' Tax and his placement among the supporters and movers and shakers who paid the freight for the Campbell Government over the years I don't think I'm prepared to listen to what the man says about anything.
"Elections B.C. records show foundation chairman and communications advisor James Hoggan is a frequent Liberal donor.
The B.C. Liberal Party received six donations totaling $8,943 from James Hoggan and Associates from 2005 to 2008. Hoggan’s company was paid $353,855 by the B.C. government from 2005-2006 to 2007-2008, according to Public Accounts. Contracts included the Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion project and Canada Line.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that I’m a Liberal supporter,” Hoggan told 24 hours.
Of course, Hoggan would also say that the 'Campbell (Carbon) Tax' is good public policy.
I just think the evidence that the tax hasn't done a single thing to help the environment since its introduction; hasn't reduced the production of CO2 one gram and hasn't gotten ONE commuter into public transit or one small businessman into a natural gas-burning work truck WHILE it has managed to pump millions more into Victoria's coffers even though it was promised to be REVENUE neutral tends to make even Hoggan's support for the tax sound idle and facile.
You need to find another more credible source to help you suss out the PR phonys among the supporters of the Alberta Oil Sands Andrew - Hoggan won't help your case - he'll just make you feel sleazy in the morning.
Cheers.
Quotations about Hoggan's 'record' taken from this (link below) Tyee article by Bob Mackin and are shown in bold above:
http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2009/04/15/SuzukiChairLiberalSupporter/
G West
1 year ago
@Tim Shipton
Would this be the same Alberta Enterprise Group that hosts public appearances by 'folks' like Ezra Levant where he talks about his recent book "Ethical Oil: The case for Canada's Oil Sands"?
Yeh, and you're the same guys who've been trucking off to Washington DC to lobby for the Keystone XL pipeline?
Right?
I think Tyee readers have enough of an idea just WHAT your group is all about simply from knowing a bit about the guys you hang out with.
You've made your own reputation - I think you ought to live with it.
Anyone who associates with Levant and his brand of character-assassinating sleaze mongering shouldn't complain too much about what Nikiforuk has written about you here.
G West
1 year ago
In fact, Tim Shipton
I've done a little research about your little ginger group and I think I've got a pretty clear appreciation of why Andrew Nikiforuk bothered to mention you in the current context.
Your little coterie of business folk are nothing more than a lobby group FOR the continued and increasing exploitation of the Tar Sands and the demonization of anyone or any company which doesn’t tow your party line. The suggestion that your activities are primarily concerned with what is best for Alberta and Canada is, at the very least, risible.
No amount of cosmetics will suffice to cover up the odour associated with the activities of you and the gang which pays your salary.
Jeffrey J.
1 year ago
All Roads Lead to Capitalism
For those concerned about the conundrum of oil and resource extraction, all roads lead to the core issue: continuous growth capitalism. Based on the evidence, we will never solve climate change and the destruction of our environment without addressing the driving ideology.
Many groups & individuals have tried to do one without the other. Their intentions are often admirable. But they always fall short because they never challenge the 'right' of corporations to maximize profits. To liquidate the earth.
This approach has been adopted by Jim Hoggan in his book Climate Cover Up. Worth reading. But Hoggan clearly believes monopoly capitalism will accept constraints on their economic behaviour. This is an article of faith running through many authors.
Sadly, there is no evidence corporate America and monopoly capitalism has EVER accepted voluntary constraint.
In the end, we must turn to Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein to learn the only way out of this doomed trajectory is repudiation of state capitalism and a return to community self governance.
Great discussion as always.
zalm
1 year ago
Bwaaaahahahaaaaa!
Well said, GWest.
Tim, your notion that your group is composed of Albertans who care about their province may be true from a financial point of view, but from the point of view of Canadians or the world, it lacks all credibility.
Please, carry on posting - I'd love to hear how much your people care about the environment - but I suspect you might be too busy to reply to a board like this.
zalm
1 year ago
reallife
"Before you buy into this typical Nikiforuk rant consider that the oil sands development pours a huge amount of money into the federal and provincial coffers from royalties and taxes, including income taxes paid by the thousands of high income workers."
It does not. As Alberta government budget documents show for the last completed fiscal 2010, tar sands "pours" about a billion-and-a-half in royalties and fees into the Treasury, including $78 million "voluntarily" collected from the oil companies for "research" into climate change under the government's CCEMF emissions fund. Natural gas still pours the major proportion of royalties into the Treasurey at nearly $5 billion, with light and heavy oils and other resources making up the rest of its $7.3 billion in royalty revenue. Tar sands royalties are only 1% - 9%, withi most of the companies clustered at the low end due to the high cost of operation.
Now lets look at the spending side. $500 million for infrastructure projects in Fort Mac not funded by other sources such as the tar sands companies. $200 million for CCS (carbon capture) strategies for this year alone (part of a 3-year investment of $500 million). Letters of intent to fund $2 billion more in CCS projects over 15 years including $745 million for Shell's Scotford plant. $30 million for new water supplies province-wide (which is more for farmers than oil sands but not a word about charging the oil companies for water taken from the Athabaska.)
Net gain from the tar sands to the Treasury? Less than $850 million in fiscal 2010. Pretty piss-poor, I'd say.
And not a word about those high-paying jobs. If they weren't in Alberta, they'd be in Texas, and we wouldn't have to pay for the services these high-paying jobs use, like health care, drug rehab, social housing and education and roads (oh, yes, Fort MAc has every one of those) - and sending huge swaths of the Canadian Government to lobby in Washington not to turn away the tar sands from export.
No, the tar sands are no deal for Canada - not even for Alberta. I don't know where you got your ideas from, but the facts are here:
http://www.finance.alberta.ca/publications/budget/budget2010/fiscal-plan-spending.pdf
http://www.finance.alberta.ca/publications/budget/budget2010/fiscal-plan-revenue.pdf
http://www.energy.alberta.ca/OilSands/pdfs/GDE_osr.pdf
RickW
1 year ago
Just a small tidbit
http://www.finance.alberta.ca/business/ahstf/index.html
As detailed in the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund 2010-11 Third Quarter Update, the Heritage Fund is valued at $15.0 billion as of December 31, 2010
Fortuitous coincidence? Albertans can "breathe freely" now, knowing that the 3,761,772 folks who live there, won't have to "cough up" the $4000 for each man, woman & child as penalty for their enduring prosperity. Mr. Stelmach simply needs to apply the Heritage Fund, rather than pester Big Oil, or confiscate citizens' bank accounts......
Art the Green
1 year ago
a modest proposal for real life
real life, do you realize how closely you resemble the intentionally skewed logic put forward in a modest proposal? namely that no one can criticize the tar sands before replacing the jobs the completey insane practice and destructive practive creates. compare:
"But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme (of selling irish infants for food), and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for an hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round million of creatures in human figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock would leave them in debt two millions of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, cottagers, and laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect: I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.
Cool Hand
1 year ago
Oh Brother!
Does anyone here drive a car??? Anyone??? If ya talk the talk, ya better walk the walk!!
All gasoline/diesel sold in BC is Albertan oil sands oil!! Outta principle ya better sell your car and buy a bike. I knew it, principle be damned, ya all still gonna drive your Albertan tar sands-fueled car! Once a hypocrite, always a hypocrite.
Off the mark - as usual.
Alberta royalty revenue - Fiscal year 2010/11:
1. Natural Gas: $1.654 billion;
2. Oil Sands: $3.567 billion;
http://www.energy.alberta.ca/About_Us/2564.asp
The oil sands are an extremely capital intensive industry requiring 100's of $billion$ in capital outlays.
Oil sands royalty revenue is structured in such a way that capital investment is recouped prior to the royalty "flood gates" being opened.
By 2044, these "flood gates" will be opened with the Albertan treasury reaping ~$67.5 billion/annum from oil sands royalties.
By that time, the Albertan treasury will have reaped, ~$1.1 trillion in cumulative oil/natural royalties over the decades.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/Oilsands+poised+flood+Alberta+coffers+2044/4862602/story.html
No wonder Alberta only has a 5% GST and no PST. I'd bet that BC would love to have "that problem".
Art the Green
1 year ago
do you seriously believe the
do you seriously believe the main reason the tar sands are criticized is because everyone's jealous of alberta's government revenues?
G West
1 year ago
Art the Green
Apparently he does.
How big do you suppose the reclamation bill will be by the time those accrued royalties are payable?
'Wanna bet who's going to be holding the bag when all those companies have disappeared into collective bankruptcy?'
Alberta will be screwed by that time - as will BC because our royalty/capital cost allowances are even more generous than Alberta's are - plus, we're footing the cost for the roads and infrastructure the oil and gas companies need to exploit the leases we gave them for a pile of cheesy chump change.
zalm
1 year ago
Kuhl hound
"All gasoline/diesel sold in BC is Albertan oil sands oil!!"
Wrong again. Much of the gasoline sold in the Lower Mainland comes from BP's Cherry Point refinery in Washington State, which cracks Alaska oil. And incidentally, I do ride my bike to work. And I do work. How do you waste your day?
Your royalty revenue records are suspect. The ones I'm using are latest Alberta Treasury budget docs for the last complete budget year. I strongly suspect your documents are the bumph that's being peddled by Alberta salesmen in Washington DC these days.
"By 2044, these "flood gates" will be opened with the Albertan treasury reaping ~$67.5 billion/annum from oil sands royalties."
That's a wild-ass guess that not even you should believe. I still remember Popular Science articles from the 1970s that swore we were all going to be fueling our brave new world with pure clean oil from the Tar Sands - look how much longer those promises took to come about.
"The oil sands are an extremely capital intensive industry requiring 100's of $billion$ in capital outlays. Oil sands royalty revenue is structured in such a way that capital investment is recouped prior to the royalty "flood gates" being opened."
I think in the instance of OPTI Canada's upgrader, that promise of "flood gates" is pretty much done. There's no hope of a profit for that plant - several decades worth of too much energy use, unreliable technology, and water use higher than any other plant in the vicinity. Nice idea, but another one that didn't work.
If there's anything left of that plant in two years, it'll be because the Chinese have bought it and will be dumping hundreds of billions of $$$ of Chinese technology into it to try to make it work.
And stick us with the waste afterwards.
WE haven't even touched on all the issues that make Alberta the retarded little brother of confederation, and there you go bringing up another one - taxation and spending the Heritage Fund. Next you'll probably mention carbon capture and storage...
Art the Green
1 year ago
the united states is footing the bill too
the united states is paying too, as this project requires some alterations to the law and the width of highways in montana and idaho, detailed in the following clip. look at how jealous the world is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoKW771tG_Q
stop the megaloads! both on the road and in the colluding media and pr firms
pippatch
1 year ago
BS
Slag the oil sands all you want. You still love to drive your gas guzzlers and over indulge in any number of products indirectly produced from the oil industry.
Cool Hand
1 year ago
Sha.. Zalm
BC's crude oil/refined gasoline/diesel is transported through the Trans Mountain Pipeline to the Kamloops Terminal/Sumas Terminal/Burnaby Terminal respectively. All AB oils sands feedstock.
The only refined product heading north across the border from Cherry Point is jet fuel to YVR, which supplements the jet fuel refined at the Burnaby Terminal.
And like ~80% of BC'ers, I drive my 400 odd pony express 'cause time is money. Biking is for recreational purposes.
And Alberta royalty revenue - Fiscal year 2010/11:
1. Natural Gas: $1.654 billion;
2. Oil Sands: $3.567 billion;
Comes directly from AB's own budget figures:
http://www.energy.alberta.ca/About_Us/2564.asp
Again to re-iterate - AB's oils sands royalty revenue is structured in such a manner that once the extreme capital costs have been recouped, the oil sands royalty revenue taps really begin to flow.
I certainly have a high level of confidence in the Canadian Energy Research Institute detailed analyis on the $67.5 billion/annum royalty figure by 2044. I've read the report.
Art the Green
1 year ago
this stupid dont like it dont drive thing
the tar sands does not come down to consumer demand. if it did, why would they have PR firms out there trying to make the tar sands look good? "who cares, give me fuel for my car!" people would say. well, maybe you say it. maybe you're paid to?
maybe it'd help to point out big auto and big oil have been hampering and dismantling mass transit and alternative energy. how much of a choice is it when all competing options have been driven into the ground and all the information available slanted.
Art the Green
1 year ago
plus its still fallacious.
plus its still fallacious. do you think this makes sense?
the tar sands : huge environmental catastrophe because people insist on commuting to work.
there's about 9 levels of wrong. one of them being.. it takes as much energy to extract this oil as what you get back. that this is ignored suggests a corporate profit motive, where you externalize/subsidize/hide the costs, reclassify whatever you get out of it as wealth creation, there's no other problem and nothing to see here, the end.
G West
1 year ago
You're right of course Art
But, and considering the company, I think there's an appropriate line from a movie Kuhl Hound must 'know' something about.
It comes up when Luke is put in the box because the warden is afraid he'll run to attend his mother's funeral.
As the 'Boss' locks Luke in the box the following exchange takes place:
Boss: Sorry, Luke. I'm just doing my job. You gotta appreciate that.
Luke: Nah - calling it your job don't make it right, Boss.
That's what's going on here - people who support the exploitation and degradation that comes with the Tar Sands 'know' that what they're doing isn't RIGHT ... but, like good little soldiers, they do as they're told.
The dishonest part comes next when they try to spread the blame and assign the responsibility to everyone else.
RickW
1 year ago
G West
Sounds suspiciously Nuremburg-ish........
derek p
1 year ago
seriously
The blind eye arguements are getting ridiculous. They are running out of anything remotely factual to make any sort of supporting arguement so they resort to 'you don't like it then don't ever use it'.
As for the Alberta Enterprise Group, I have done my own research and they are just another group of oil industry thugs using corporate money to promote 'false science' to advance their one and only cause.
derek p
1 year ago
seriously
The blind eye arguements are getting ridiculous. They are running out of anything remotely factual to make any sort of supporting arguement so they resort to 'you don't like it then don't ever use it'.
As for the Alberta Enterprise Group, I have done my own research and they are just another group of oil industry thugs using corporate money to promote 'false science' to advance their one and only cause.
happy (not verified)
1 year ago
Nikiforuk doesn't like fracking either. But the NDP does!
So now what? Libs, NDP, doesn't matter who's running the show, pipelines, LNG terminals and tankers are coming.
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/gives+partial+answer+will+programs/4941966/story.html
So I can assume everyone who's been raving about how bad tankers and pipelines are will now walk the walk and vote Green?
G West
1 year ago
happy
The subject here is TAR SANDS Oil and using BC as the flow through vehicle to pass on Alberta's mess to Asia
Not natural gas...That's another debate for another time.
Furthermore, I doubt Horgan represents the party on this particular file - but of course that remains to be seen.
Right now job one is getting rid of the HST.
Job two is getting rid of Clark and the Campbell government.
All the rest is a question to be dealt with when the main enemy is defeated.
zalm
1 year ago
Kuhl Hound
Ugh.
Hung out to dry in 2011 by a change in policy for 2010 and an improvement in rates for oil.
That doesn't change the spending on the tar sands and the associated infrastructure and social ills of Fort Mac, though. Just makes the picture a little - "greener".
Money, I mean.
Also diesel is shipped from Cherry Point to Lower Mainland gas stations - that's been done since long before Chevron had its unscheduled shutdown a few years back. Chevron simply doesn't produce enough diesel for the market here either - I know enough operators at the facility who know the truth of that. Also eastern and nothern BC fuels are delivered from Husky's Prince George refinery and that takes BC and ALberta light sweet crude. Edmonton's Strathcona refinery also supplies fuels to eastern and south-eastern BC retailers by truck, as you may well recall from the shortages of a few years ago after their fire.
Now, there's no doubt we get tar sands oil here in BC, but not nearly the whole of BC, unless you're one of those people who thinks the province ends at Hope. And you don't strike me that way.
happy (not verified)
1 year ago
Good one West
You doubt he represents the party on a NG pipeline file?
He's the energy critic. No need to debate that one any further I would hope.
Yes, yes, we know this particular discussion is TAR sands, but bringing this latest development into it is fair play.
You yourself have been pure hard line against fracking, and export of any non renewable natural resources saying they should be reserved for the domestic market only and not shipped offshore.
And you blame all that on short sighted, greedy, coniving, pandering neocon governments.
And here we have the NDP saying in no uncertain terms they would push for increased exports complete with fracking, pipelines and shipping terminals.
So there you go. Thats all I've got to say on the matter.
G West
1 year ago
No Happy, that's NOT what they said
But, even if they had, I wouldn't agree with them.
We should only be utilizing what gas and/or oil resources we NEED to use for our own economy and to give us the kind of competitive advantage we need to compete with cheap labour markets and pathetic labour and safety regulations in the 'global' economy.
That's just basic Econ 101.
Just like Hydro - generate only what BC needs and keep the price down as low as possible so we can help ourselves and create JOBS here - not in the States and certainly not in China.
The mess the US is in today ought to be enough of a lesson for us.
I'm totally against fracking and I have close relatives who are petroleum engineers in Calgary who are every bit as much against it too.
The NDP shouldn't be pushing for energy exports and, at the next convention, I can assure you they'll get the message too.
It's just with the NDP there's a chance it will actually HAVE an impact - when you're financed by the energy hogs - like the BC Liberals - there isn't a snowball's chance in hell of the message getting through.
However, in the end, it's gonna be a decision for First Nations and the Feds about whether or not there are lots of nasty tankers of one kind or another coming in and out of the inside passage - you think?
Cheers