Everything about Alberta’s oil sands is enormous, from the sheer scale of the 170 billion-barrel resource in the ground for the two-story trucks that haul bitumen ore in the mines to the $30 billion per year in capital investment to expand the flow of crude.
The industry was born 50 years ago with the most significant single private investment made in Canada to that date, a $250 million bet by a forerunner of today’s Suncor Energy Inc.
Alberta Oil has played a critical role in Canadian economic development; Alberta has employed many people from every corner of the world; due to the failure of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta running an unsuccessful campaign, they handed the government to the NDP party who’s destroying Alberta. Last year they introduced a carbon tax on Albertans, and our current prime minister likes that. So since last year, all Canadians have to pay the carbon tax, which is unacceptable and unnecessary.
Trans Canada invested millions of dollars in the research and development of energy east, which would create many jobs across Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario.
The carbon tax scared the oil companies, as of 2016, seven oil multinationals that moved out of Canada’s tar sands, including the following oil giants.
- Statoil. In December 2016, Norway’s Statoil sold all of its tar sands assets at a loss and exited Western Canada altogether due to low oil prices, domestic pressure from Norwegians and an “energy market (that) has changed since (2007) quite considerably.”
- Koch Industries. Just days after Statoil left the tar sands, Koch Industries, owned by the infamous climate-denial-funding Koch brothers, ended plans to build its proposed Muskwa tar sands project west of Fort McMurray.
- Imperial Oil. In January 2017, Imperial Oil, the Canadian subsidiary of ExxonMobil, announced it would “write down” 2.8 billion barrels of its bitumen reserves in Alberta. The company acknowledged that the tar sands oil could not be economically produced under prevailing low energy prices.
- ConocoPhillips. In February 2017, American oil giant ConocoPhillips was forced to admit that 2 billion barrels of its previously “proven” tar sands reserves might have to stay in the ground. ConocoPhillips also suggested low global oil prices made the reserves uneconomical to produce.
- ExxonMobil. Also, in February 2017, the United States’ largest oil company, ExxonMobil, announced that it could no longer profitably develop up to 6 billion barrels of its tar sands reserves unless oil prices rise. That’s 3.6 billion barrels of oil that could be left in the ground.
- Marathon Oil. On the same day as Shell’s tar sands divestment, Houston-based Marathon Oil signed a deal to sell its Canadian tar sands operations to cut the highest-cost assets from its portfolio.
The last time I checked, Quebec is still the biggest welfare state in the country; Energy East would have benefited Quebec and could have put Thousands of people to work; let’s be honest this is all about politics and trying to hurt the vast province of Alberta,
Due to those unforgivable decisions, Alberta can’t compete against those bullies at OPEC ” Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.”
Under good government and leadership, Alberta will be able to compete against OPEC and sell it is to many countries. Still, I don’t see that happening till 2019 when a new government is elected that is pro-Alberta oil and lead the nation in the right direction.
To our Prime Minster If you genuinely care about the environment, you should Prevent and regulate Quebec from dumping raw sewage into the oceans.
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