• 3 minutes e-car sales collapse
  • 6 minutes America Is Exceptional in Its Political Divide
  • 11 minutes Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  • 2 hours GREEN NEW DEAL = BLIZZARD OF LIES
  • 5 mins How Far Have We Really Gotten With Alternative Energy
  • 10 hours If hydrogen is the answer, you're asking the wrong question
  • 4 days Oil Stocks, Market Direction, Bitcoin, Minerals, Gold, Silver - Technical Trading <--- Chris Vermeulen & Gareth Soloway weigh in
  • 6 days The European Union is exceptional in its political divide. Examples are apparent in Hungary, Slovakia, Sweden, Netherlands, Belarus, Ireland, etc.
  • 23 hours Biden's $2 trillion Plan for Insfrastructure and Jobs
  • 5 days "What’s In Store For Europe In 2023?" By the CIA (aka RFE/RL as a ruse to deceive readers)
Tajikistan’s Controversial Roghun Dam 'Too Big to Fail'

Tajikistan’s Controversial Roghun Dam 'Too Big to Fail'

Tajikistan is pushing forward with…

Saudi Arabia’s Non-Oil Revenue Hits 50% Of GDP

Saudi Arabia’s Non-Oil Revenue Hits 50% Of GDP

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Economy…

David Yager

David Yager

Based in Calgary, David Yager is a former oilfield services executive and the principal of Yager Management Ltd., an oilfield services management consultancy. He has…

More Info

Premium Content

Canada’s Oil Future Has Been Hijacked

How Did Alberta’s Oil Future End Up With Pipeline Companies?

How did the value of your house and your future employment opportunities end up in the hands of owners/operators of buried steel tubes and a single federal regulator? Why does the fate of Canada’s largest and most valuable resource industry – and the millions of Canadians who depend upon it – rest with commercial pipeline companies and the National Energy Board (NEB)?

What about all the other stakeholders? Why are the governments which own these resources on behalf of the people and all the elected politicians not more actively involved? What about the voters? Who’s representing the consumers who need the product to survive in this large cold country and the Canadians whose jobs depend on oil and gas development? When will we hear from the companies that actually find and produce oil?

Welcome to Canadian pipeline paralysis 2016. Incredibly, three private pipeline companies – TransCanada Corporation, Enbridge Inc. and Kinder Morgan Canada, guided by and the vacillating and increasingly impossible mandate of the NEB - are now in charge of Canadian oil policy. Kinder Morgan isn’t even Canadian. Give your head a shake.

These companies clearly drew the short straw when, in the pursuit of commercial self-interest, they ended up in expensive, high profile and inconclusive public hearings debating aboriginal land claims and the future of planet Earth. Pipeliners are just plumbing companies which connect buyers and sellers for money. Who put them in charge? The logical people to weigh in on such matters of domestic and global importance – our elected politicians – are nowhere to be found. Unless of course they object at which point you can’t keep them quiet.

The NEB’s Energy East hearing in Montreal was shut down on August 29 for reasons of decorum and safety thanks to three highly-motivated professional disrupters. Finally, more people are asking the question nobody wants to answer; how did the future of Canada’s oil industry end up being decided at pipeline hearings?

Politicians Love Regulators

Because politicians love regulators. They hide behind them. Regulators are government institutions which study, analyse and adjudicate on major projects somebody believes are in the public interest. They need regulatory approval because they impact people, often called voters. Highways. Power lines. Pipelines. Railroads. Mass transit. All shared public works and utility infrastructure that modern society cannot live without.

And people love pipelines. They just don’t know it. Every residential and commercial building is supported by multiple pipelines carrying fresh water and natural gas in and sewage out. Pipeline conduits protect electricity, telephone and cable TV lines. Every community in the country is riddled with pipelines. “Look before you dig”. The 2016 oil pipeline stalemate is about the contents not the tube.

A great example of why politicians love regulators is sour gas or hydrogen sulphide development in Alberta. The WCSB is cursed with some of the highest concentrations of poisonous H2S in the world. Following the tragic 1982 Lodgepole blowout the province’s energy regulator concluded future exploitation of reservoirs with a certain combination of H2S and potential flow rate should be subjected to what became the Critical Well public consultation process. The regulator was the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), a name which has changed a couple of times.

It took some getting used to. A resource developer would have to post a public notice and within a certain distance go door-to-door saying, “We’d like to drill a poison gas well upwind of the school your kids attend. What do you think of that?” The reaction was universally negative. However, through long and expensive public hearings the ERCB would listen to and review everything – including the drilling plan and accidental release mitigation measures – and decide if it could be done safely and in the public interest. Most wells were eventually approved but a few were denied. An entire industry of emergency response planning, community consultation, security and downwind air quality monitoring emerged. There seemed to be enough money around to keep this increasingly expensive business going. Related: Most Oil Industry Experts See Oil Below $60 Through 2017

The genius of the Critical Well regulatory process was no elected politician had to tell their flock, “Drilling poison wells in your back yard is good for the economy. Shut up and take one for the team”. That was left to regulators frequently described as the fairest and finest in the world. Today’s gas prices are so low and H2S processing costs so high nobody can afford to do develop sour gas so this issue has gone away.

But even the decision of the world’s most enlightened adjudicators was not always accepted. Recall late last century when Weibo Ludwig took the law into his own hands and was arrested for bombing gas wells and facilities in northwest Alberta.

The mandate of the NEB has not been materially different from the ERCB. Faced with a pipeline application and approval process, the regulator was charged with seeking industry and public input before determining if the design was safe, the setbacks adequate, that environmental protection had been considered, and finally if the project was in the national interest. The historic bias has been towards economic advantage because, until recently, resource development in Canada been never been regarded as anything else. It has worked well for decades. Canada didn’t become the 5th largest hydrocarbon jurisdiction (oil, gas, natural gas liquids) in the world without building and burying a whack of pipe.

However, in the past five years the subject changed from the existence of the pipe to the contents. Suddenly formerly boring NEB hearings were dealing with increasing numbers of intervenors talking about the terrible effects of mankind consuming oil such as global warming, climate change and rising oceans. For Enbridge, TransCanada and Kinder Morgan, this was simply not their business. They are transportation companies. All they did with oil was move it around. It was like railways being questioned because they might transport genetically modified wheat or the merits of highways based on the fuel consumption ratings of the cars on trucks that might use it.

The Anti-Carbon, Anti-Harper Crowd Takes Control

The success the climate change/anti-carbon crowd has enjoyed vilifying oil is well documented. Carbon-based fuels are changing the climate and will ultimately destroy the environment. This must stop now. There is no worse source than Alberta’s oil sands. This is not true (think lignite coal) but in this racket perception is reality. It is counter-intuitive that everyone can burn oil and depend upon oil-based products to live their lives while simultaneously learning to hate the commodity. But that’s what happened.

It’s a big deal. It is no longer politically advantageous for anybody running for public office to say, “Oil is the miracle fuel that powers modern civilization so shut up and take one for the team”. More politicians are learning there is more to be gained from trashing oil than defending it. And what else could possibly matter more than winning the next election?

An unabashed supporter of oil was former Prime Minister Stephen Harper who, early in his mandate, called Canada “an energy superpower”. But as oil became branded as toxic it had a similar impact on politics. With fewer public officials brave enough to wade into the fray, the NEB process into new pipeline Northern Gateway became the battleground for oil development versus anti-carbon fuel forces. Former NEB chair Gaeten Caron has said many times since retiring that the scope of NEB hearings has exploded far beyond the regulator’s original mandate. Harper’s determination to support the industry became a liability, one of many reasons his party lost the 2015 federal election.

Harper was PM for almost ten years. It became fashionable to claim his administration completely bungled the pipeline file. Both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley routinely blame Harper’s government for polarizing the pipeline debate by ignoring the anti-carbon movement, interfering in the NEB process and running roughshod over the interests of First Nations and others affected by development.

Even people who should know better have lost their senses. In an exchange with this writer, the former Alberta Liberal MLA and broadcaster Dave Taylor declared on Twitter, “I called out Harper's failure to get a single mile of pipeline to export all that oil.”

Utterly false. Under Harper, in 2010 Enbridge completed the Alberta Clipper line to the U.S. and two years later TransCanada completed phase one of Keystone pipeline. Today these lines carry 1.7 million b/d of oil to the U.S., over 40 percent of Canadian crude production. One of the first acts of the Obama administration in 2008 was to ratify the cross-border permit for Clipper, the same approval the White House withheld to kill the Keystone XL shortcut to Cushing in 2015. There were thousands of kilometers of export lines and regional connectors buried while Harper was PM.

Reviewing history objectively and recognizing how much pipe did get approved before oil became uber-politicized, critics should be more sympathetic to the former federal and provincial governments and industry for wondering where the anti-oil tsunami came from and how it grew so strong so quickly. How could the U.S. approve Clipper and Keystone but not KXL?

Purchasing The Elusive “Social License”

In Edmonton and Ottawa new governments claim to have the answer.

Alberta’s NDP solution is carbon taxes and oil sands emission caps as proof to opponents that Alberta truly cares about the environment. The clearly contradictory message is that the NDP supports the oil industry but for our collective good it must be heavily taxed and regulated, even if the process renders it uneconomic. It’s a great day at the office when a “progressive” government can raise taxes and save mankind at the same time.

The NDP’s 2015’s Climate Change Leadership Plan concluded there existed a positive cost/benefit analysis whereby large and comprehensive carbon taxes would earn a so-called “social license” from opponents, thus permitting continued oil development. We’ll suffer by imposing huge financial penalties on carbon but prosper by gaining permission (defined as reduced opposition) from environmentalists. The NDP thesis, at least publicly if not intellectually supported by several large oil sands producers, was no action, no pipe. The $3 billion a year carbon tax will come into effect on January 1, 2017.

Federally the Liberals concluded fine-tuning the NEB’s mandate and an expanded consultation process with opponents would mollify resistance. Simply re-regulate the regulator and rebuild “trust”, the key element that was said to be lacking. As a related issue, how Ottawa will ever permit Northern Gateway to proceed after the Prime Minister has publicly-declared an oil tanker ban on the north Pacific Coast is impossible to comprehend.

But after the Montreal NEB hearing disruptions it became obvious that neither Alberta’s nor Ottawa’s schemes to make new friends meant anything to anti-oil crusaders. Trudeau was half a world away in China talking about other things. Alberta’s energy minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd’s public reaction sounded like the famous line from the classic movie Cool Hand Luke. Just before he was shot in the head in the last scene star Paul Newman said, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate”. CBC News wrote, “The protests, said McCuaig-Boyd, are an indication that Alberta needs to work harder to ‘allay the concerns’.”

There’s a pattern emerging here.

Seek Forgiveness, Not Permission

Both Northern Gateway and Trans Mountain have received conditional NEB approval. The problem is the NEB’s decision was not “no”. Legal challenges promised before the Northern Gateway hearings resulted in the courts overturning federal approval because Ottawa failed to adequately consult aboriginals. This had nothing to do with the NEB. The solution? More consultation. The Trudeau administration is staring at the multi-conditional Trans Mountain NEB approval with a federal decision due by year-end. Maybe. Related: Why Big Oil Is Shying Away From Mexico’s Latest Oil Auction

Anybody objectively studying the pipeline approval process can only conclude the NEB pipeline application, review and decision process no longer works. Opponents are well organized and well-funded and won’t accept “yes” or even “maybe” for an answer. The simple reversal of Enbridge Line 9 from Sarnia to Montreal was fought vigorously, followed by civil disobedience once it was operating. Built during the world oil crisis of the 1970s, Line 9 was a pipeline that originally flowed west to east and was reversed twice. It was built for no other purpose but to carry oil. The latest Energy East stalling tactics involve deep research on NEB panelists hunting for alleged conflicts of interest. And if that doesn’t work, opponents will just storm the hearings and physically shut down the proceedings.

When the anti-crude crowd figured out how the NEB regulatory process worked, they must have jumped for joy. Anybody can attend and say anything. The mandate is to hear from everyone, no matter how bizarre or arcane the presentation. If denied, a voice intervenors could allege massive injustice. The media would transmit their every utterance for free. How else could so few people with so little money hijack the future of the Canadian oil business?

ADVERTISEMENT

Canadian regulatory bodies work more on the principles of British common law than American-style constitutional law. If the process is open and all voices heard, the final decision will be accepted by the public in the interest of fair play. The problem is opponents of oil and pipelines are so convinced of the purity of their cause they no longer accept any need to play fair.

When Will Pipeline Companies Give Up?

Those who care about the future of Canada’s oilpatch should question how long pipeline companies will continue this application/hearing/disruption/approval/denial process before they do something that actually makes money. Between KXL, Northern Gateway, Trans Mountain and Energy East, these companies have invested billions. If approved, these costs can be rolled into the rate base and generate a return. But when rejected, the costs are restated as losses. Billions out the door either way. At some point pipeline executives proposing and promoting pipelines that never get approved will realize they are not making career-enhancing decisions.

And they’ve already figured that out. TransCanada and Enbridge have been busy doing what they are supposed to do, which is make money for shareholders. In July TransCanada closed the $US13 billion acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group Inc., a large gas distributor in the northeast U.S. On September 6 Enbridge announced a $US37 billion merger with Spectra Energy Corp. which operates oil and gas pipelines in Canada and the U.S.

If they can’t build pipe, then buy it. Nothing wrong with that. TransCanada and Enbridge are great Canadian companies. But this strategy is much more successful for their shareholders than for tens of thousands of unemployed oil workers wondering if and when they will be able to return to work.

Imagine if Canada woke up one morning to learn TransCanada had simply given up on Energy East and withdrawn its application because the process was unworkable and political support non-existent. This is pure conjecture of course as their customers will likely persuade and/or pay them to keep pushing. But this can’t and won’t go on forever. Ordinary Canadians must realize the wrong people have been put in charge of the future of oil in Canada and the NEB-mandated pipeline approval process no longer works.

No regulator can thrive or even survive when its political masters conclude it is the problem, not the solution, and decline to provide clear and definitive support. Unfortunately, this is the Trudeau government’s current strategy for success.

Political Leadership Please

There is an alternative. That is for Canada’s elected political class to put the interests of the economy ahead of their own and state the obvious; “We’re putting an oil pipeline through your neighborhood. Shut up and take one for the team”. Governments have the power of legislation and legal enforcement. All it takes is the political will and courage to use it. If the country is to gain control of its economic future the only solution is to challenge the organized, well-funded, vocal and surprisingly small anti-oil crowd. Don’t hide behind regulators which will be confronted and assailed so long as they don’t say “no”. And most importantly, don’t dump the issue on private-sector common carriers of commodities the world still requires and consumers will not live without.

For Alberta, if we can’t get pipe then cancel the carbon tax. The massive tax increases and development restrictions for the oil business to purchase a “social license” will be economically damaging. The desired response, which is petroleum opponents standing down so Alberta can get more pipe to tidewater and stay in the oil business, is clearly not working. If one of the world’s largest oil producing regions can’t gain low-cost market access could Edmonton at least allow the people who live here to keep their jobs and homes? Must Albertans be taxed to the point of financial ruin during a massive recession to win a battle that cannot be won?

Time for Plan B.

By David Yager for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:


Download The Free Oilprice App Today

Back to homepage





Leave a comment
  • Mike Kom on September 11 2016 said:
    Why can't we skip inter-provincial/federal restrictions and become self-sufficient in energy then? I have a dynamite idea for this but I doubt anybody would take me seriously since I'm just a layman.....
  • MARC GUINDON on September 11 2016 said:
    Interesting article. Although I do agree with most of the article, I still believe PM Harper's decision to enlist Republicans in the Keystone XL debate (and disregarding Obama) was a terrible miscalculation.

    It enabled the environmentalists to enlist the "occupy Wall Street" crowd who were by then looking for a cause they could win. It also helped galvanize the "Tea party" radicals on the opposite side.

    Before then, pipeline debates had been Good vs Best. Suddenly, they became Good vs Evil, blindingly polarized. And worst of all, it all spilled into Canada.

    Lesson to be learned: do not ever policize anything in the USA... it will get the Institutional Gridlock treatment.
  • JP DeCaen on September 11 2016 said:
    Plan B can only be political change in Alberta leading to a dump of the carbon tax. It's a while before the next election though, and the opposition is less than convincing at times (leadership defections, perceived/real corruption, dumb comments). I'm afraid that Alberta/Canada's oil and gas future plans are in fact dead. The people just don't want them enough. Get used to a future of crippling tax rates which drive the rest of businesses away, so that the governments can avoid huge deficits. Welcome, austere future!
  • Aryt Alasti on September 12 2016 said:
    The purpose of a carbon tax is not to purchase "social license" for fossil fuel companies! Far from it. As a wide variety of economists have stated, carbon pricing incentivizes consumers to purchase low-carbon fuels and energy, as is in fact crucial for future planetary habitability. With prices so low these days, the incentives won't be sufficient, but the intent is to alter behaviors.
  • GregSS on September 12 2016 said:
    Never understood why they didn't just twin the existing Keystone pipeline. Hard to argue against expanding something that is already there and right of ways already being used.
  • Luis Destro on September 12 2016 said:
    A really great read.
    It's very unfortunate that Canadians are shooting ourselves in the foot economically.
    Your absolutely right, you cannot change the way environmental extremists think or even rationalized with them.
    NEB needs to look at the middle ground and rationalize, what is the safest and most fair way to make this happen for Canada's best interest?
  • Jim Decker on September 12 2016 said:
    I love the way the author starts the article alluding that this is somehow the fault of the pipeline companies- especially that damn Yankee one. -and the commenter that blames it all on Harper's relationship with the Republicans.

    The blame for the Keystone fiascoes is strictly a Democrat/Wacko affair. I am embarrassed that those fools have so much power down here.

    The blame for the rest of Canada's oil patch problems is very simple. You elected a bunch of socialists fools.

    Sadly, we are not much better. I wish we had a Harper running for president. He would win in a landslide.
  • R. Biese on September 13 2016 said:
    Lots of noise, for sure, but do not forget to "follow the money". As noted in the article, the anti-pipe activists appear to be well funded with plenty of legal & political horsepower. I do not want to comment on the anti-pipe arguments, issues nor diminish their right to be heard. However, I am very concerned that any decision made, after due consideration, are obfuscated by legal 'guerrilla tactics' to the point of nullifying any decision at all. This, in my opinion, is the root cause of the endless delays of approvals. As they say... "Money talks." And we're talking BIG money'.
    Cushing went into over-supply in late-2010 when the final Keystone stub connected there. This created a 'Cushing Discount' of WTI vs waterborne (e.g. Brent) of ~$10/bbl. This 'Cushing Discount' continued, and increased, as crude flowed northward via the Seaway, etc and Bakken volumes ramped up. Want data? Compare WCS versus Maya (similar heavy grade). The WCS-WTI spread was still ~$13-ish with WTI
  • Hans Hyde on October 18 2016 said:
    What about the economic reality that it takes 3 pipelines to get Alberta's crude to market? 1) NG pipeline to 'steam it' to the surface; 2) NGL pipeline to 'dilute it' in order to move it to market & 3) a pipeline to transport it to market? Of course, one could ship by rail or heat it by burning coal, but that doesn't change the reality of needing other inputs & subsequently increasing costs compared to other crude options.

    Your slight disparaging of US-based KM's operations in Canada not in the best interest of Canadians, ignores the reality that Enbridge has large holdings in the US. The reversal & converting of NG pipelines to crude to move Alberta's bounty to the Gulf was not in the best intetest of US consumers, especially in the NE.

    If it is any conciliation, similar 'liberal' tactics of holding up KXL have been used 'effectively' to stop transmission lines from the Great Plains into the eastern US demand centers - it is not 'liberals' who are mounting these efforts. One might also say, Canadians are benefiting from the relative ease of getting transmission lines connected into the US grid - in the subsequent gridlock we have over REs vs coal power. But O&G interests should be happy with the growth of NG power gen - 1/2 of all US capacity reached last fall at 500 GW.

    I've always wondered, if asked 'Would you be willing to pay more at the petrol dispenser if it put Canadians (or Americans) to work?' would the consumer say 'yes'? Here in US, measured by consumers' willingness to drive miles out of their way to save a few pennies per gallon, the answer is likely 'no'. How about Canada?

    The carbon tax as presented is almost a red herring in the face that Alberta crude costs more to extract, process & ship. Several of the majors are in favor of it. In their bean counting, the 'social license' must be worth it, no?

Leave a comment




EXXON Mobil -0.35
Open57.81 Trading Vol.6.96M Previous Vol.241.7B
BUY 57.15
Sell 57.00
Oilprice - The No. 1 Source for Oil & Energy News