oilsands

Extraction vs Upgrading

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The NDP put forth a motion in the House last week which states that, “the Keystone XL pipeline would intensify the export of unprocessed raw bitumen and would export more than 40,000 well-paying Canadian jobs, and is therefore not in Canada’s best interest.”

This motion provided me with the motivation to dig into a question – if you had a given amount of capital to spend in the oil sands, would an oil sands mine alone or an integrated project with an upgrader generate the largest value-added return on investment, including total wages, royalties, taxes, and profits, and how would these be distributed?

To tackle this question, I ran two iterations of an oil sands project model based loosely on Suncor’s Fort Hills project combined with upgrader assumptions based on Suncor’s now-cancelled Voyageur project.

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Carbon pricing is not a panacea

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Pretty well every economist you talk to will agree; if you want to reduce pollution, carbon or otherwise, the most cost-effective way to do so is with a price on the emissions of that which you seek to reduce. They’ll also tell you that, under some basic assumptions, the cost-effectiveness result holds whether you impose that price through a … Read more

Energy security and Energy East

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During his visit to the Irving Refinery on August 8th, Prime Minister Stephen Harper stated that the Energy East pipeline was not just about moving Alberta’s energy to markets, but that (the government) would, “(make) sure that Canadians themselves benefit from these projects and from that gain in energy security.” That got me to thinking about energy security, what it means, and how we might benefit (or lose) from what it implies. In what follows, I argue that there are some potential benefits, but there are also some false-economies and pitfalls in terms of delivering energy security with Energy East.

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Energy East, again.

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This post previously published at Maclean’s and Canadian Business Magazine It’s been a week since TransCanada announced that it had secured sufficient commercial commitments and would be proceeding with the Energy East project. Their announcement included a few surprises – a larger-than-expected capacity of 1.1 million barrels per day, and a $300 million marine terminal in Saint John. What … Read more

CNRL incident(s) at Primrose

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I read Dan Healing’s article on the CNRL surface emulsion release incident at Primrose/Wolf Lake, Emma Pullman’s DeSmog Blog piece, and the Alberta Energy Regulator’s news release release. I’ll admit I dismissed it all at the time – sounds like an isolated incident, I thought – and I assumed it was from a well-head or pipeline. I didn’t … Read more

On Keystone XL and gas prices

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Today, a post has been making the rounds which claims that the Keystone XL pipeline would raise gas prices in the US Midwest by, “20 to 40 cents per gallon, based on the $20 to $30 per barrel discount on Canadian crude oil that Keystone XL developers seek to erase.”  Further, the report claims that, “such an increase, just in the Midwest, could cost the U.S. economy $3 billion to $4 billion a year.” Both of these claims deserve to be challenged, since they are not supported by any evidence.

Before I take on these two claims in turn, it’s worth noting that claims about the effect of Keystone XL on gas prices have been floated by proponents of the pipeline as well, such as this piece from TransCanada which states that, “Keystone XL will increase supply to the broader US market – namely the US Gulf Coast. For a given level of demand, higher supply would lower prices for crude oil, which is the most important factor shaping gasoline prices.”  What follows applies to those claims as well.

Continue reading at Canadian Business Magazine

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Mégantic and the BP Spill

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The scale and scope of the terrible tragedy in Lac Mégantic, Quebec is only begining to sink in, and my thoughts are certainly with the victims and their families at this time. In the midst of the shock and sadness of this event, already there are those who have concluded that this is an advantage for the … Read more

Energy East

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Last night, Darcy Henton filed a story which detailed a memorandum of understanding between the Alberta government and TransCanada with respect to the proposed Energy East Pipeline from Alberta to Eastern Canada. “The province has signed a memorandum of understanding to take up to 100,000 barrels-a-day of firm capacity on TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Energy East … Read more

On bubbles of bitumen

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On January 24th, Premier Redford used a televised address to Albertans to declare that price discounts for Alberta bitumen would lead Alberta to a significant deficit position – “this ‘bitumen bubble’ means the Alberta Government will collect about six billion dollars less in revenue, this year alone.” In much of the coverage which has followed this announcement, the level of misinformation has been high, so I am going to use this post to look back at fiscal year 2012-2013, to parse some of the statements made by the Premier and others, and to take a look ahead.

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Let’s make the right arguments on the EU FQD

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Today, with great praise from industry, a new report, commissioned by the Alberta Government, on oilsands GHG emissions was released.  This report, by Jacobs Consultancy, assesses the degree to which oilsands GHG emissions compare to other sources of crude entering the European Union. The results are not particularly surprising, nor are they likely to significantly … Read more