jimf

JT to approve or reject...

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-frontier-mine

Almost Canadian

That looks to be a very well researched letter. Infringing on First Nations' rights. I believe it had their approval!

scilly

I'm not sure on that! I read somewhere that this proposal began 8 or 9 years ago, at least, and that the environmental assessment(s) and First Nations consultations were not as well done as is now expected.

It is of course shale oil, not mining for copper or any other metal. Oil prices are now way below what they were when this proposal was first made

Kenny of course is his usual threatening self ......... if it is not approved, Canada is doomed and will never get any other developments!

It's time Alberta politicians began thinking of alternatives to mining, fossil fuels, and look much more to the future. That oil IS going to run out soon, and what will happen in the future without fossil fuels is only being delayed

Lychee

Well said scilly.

On a similar topic, this “Canada is fake” is a worthy read as it speaks to Canada’s history of mining:

“The mining industry is the most egregious example. Over 75 percent of the world’s mining companies are based in Canada. There’s some historical rationale here — the country was literally built on, around, and by the resource extraction industry. Still, this ridiculous preponderance is largely due to intentional moves by Canadian federal and provincial governments to attract mining money. For instance, mining companies can legally lay claim to minerals found underneath the ground basically anywhere in the province of Ontario, and in British Columbia, mining companies can stake claims on land without even having to be physically present.”


https://theoutline.com/post/8686/can...=3&zi=dgsvh6nz

Shard

Alberta does seem to be stuck between a rock and a hard place (more than literally!). It's easy to slate (do I get a bonus point Bristol?!) the province on not adequately diversifying, but it the fact is that it hasn't and such diversification takes decades to become structural. Maybe a new mine is a necessary evil in the short term, despite the environmental impact. I don't think the Nobel prize winners should be wading in to indigenous issues though, unless they happen to be Canadian. Jim, you don't have a view on this?

Almost Canadian

I fail to see why paying to import oil from the US or the middle east is preferable to processing stuff within one's own country or allowing huge amounts of coal to leave coastal BC but, then, I am not a hypocrite.

Shard

I guess the argument is to not commission new projects which will have environmental impact.

Almost Canadian

It has satisfied all of the regulatory requirements and, one assumes, will comply with whatever carbon reduction process the government wishes to impose upon it. Therefore, any refusal of it will be purely political and the electorate, and other developers that wish to invest in Canada, will be watching.

scrubbedexpat091

Guess it's a moot point now, Teck pulled their application.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...tier-1.5473370

Almost Canadian

Something about this doesn't smell right. Time will tell if I am correct.

Pulaski

Irrespective of the validity of all your other points, and whether we should be extracting oil and burning it at all, that point about oil running out soon, is manifestly incorrect. Known, extractable reserves have been increasing much faster than the rate of extraction in recent years, and currently known and extractable reserves are currently in excess of 1.4trillion barrels (top 10 countries is the link I provided), and I have no doubt that (i) further oil fields will be discovered and (ii) extraction technology will continue to advance,

I seem to recall that back in the 1980's North Sea oil was predicted to have been fully extracted by 2010 - yet in late 2018 it was reported that there were still 20 billion barrels left under in North Sea, enough for a further 20 years production, so don't believe ever "oil is running out" story you hear. An astute economist wrote (I don't recall his name now, nor where his report was published), some years ago, during the 2006-2010 oil price spike, that the end of oil drilling would be marked by a decline in the price of oil, and ending in oil reserves that would never be tapped. That seemed crazy at the time, but as other technologies advance, it now seems highly likely that oil demand will decline before we run out of reserves to pump.

Oakvillian

It might be a bit conspiracy-theory-central, but I have a suspicion Teck's announcement came because they feared the government may approve the mine.

Some of the more in-depth analyses of the planning history of this project point out that it was predicated on projections for oil revenue in the $95bbl range, around $40 higher (i.e. almost double) current prices and $20 higher than the consensus forecasts for future prices.

Teck might possibly have seen that the mine proposal was woefully uneconomic, and were hoping to have a government decision on which they could lay blame for the thing never getting off the ground. As it became clear that the Federal govt was actually quite likely to approve the mine, Teck really had no option but to front it out, take their $1.13 billion writedown, and concentrate on their more economically feasible assets.

Kenney's commentary is, as usual, all about the politics of division. "The factors that led to today's decision further weaken national unity" is a singularly unhelpful, and almost wholly inaccurate, statement. The only people talking about disunity appear to be Kenney and his supporters.I wonder whose agenda they are serving? Certainly not Canada's.

dave_j

I like this out-of-the-blue explanation.

Almost Canadian

Only last week Teck were saying that, purely on economics, the project was viable.

I see no benefit to Teck to announcing this when they did, days before a decision was due, without something being given to them "behind the scenes" so to speak, thereby avoiding the government to have to make a decision that, whichever way they decided, would have had a large political impact.

Nothing that Kenney has said has been in any way different to comments that the leaders of BC and Quebec have said regarding such projects in the recent past. Horgan has, of course, had to shut up in light of Court decisions that went against his position.

I wouldn't wish to be looking to invest in any large projects in any part of Canada at this time and that cannot be good for the Canadian economy, whatever political stripe one wears.

Oakvillian

Teck has investors to keep on side. I'm very unsurprised that they were saying the project was viable, right up to the point that they have to actually commit to building it.

Kenney said that the Alberta government had complied with every "demand" of the Federal government in terms of reporting and commitments to carbon offsets etc, in order for the project to be given the go-ahead. The joint committee that spent all that time on the environmental and economic impacts of the project had said, in their report, that the economic benefits outweighed the environmental challenges. It didn't appear that there were any significant grounds for the Feds to deny permission for the project to go forward.

I don't expect you to acknowledge that Mr Kenney's comments were at all counterproductive, but I'll leave you with Rachel Notley's view: she blamed Kenney for making the project a "political football" and said his aggressive approach to supporting the province's oil and gas sector is to blame for the end of Frontier. "My message to the premier is this: yelling at other people does not create jobs, except maybe for Tom Olsen," she said, taking a shot at the chief executive officer of the Canadian Energy Centre.

"In this case, it cost us jobs, at least 7,000. Albertans cannot afford more of this. Step up before our province gets left behind."

I agree that the current mess is off-putting to foreign inward investors. I may differ from you, though, in the reason they are likely to be put off. The Conservative policies espoused by Alberta, especially, are those that are out of step with the rest of Canada. In case you hadn't noticed, the Conservative party failed to score (on an effectively open net, given the mis-steps of the incumbent Liberals) in the last general election. Alberta, as far as the rest of the country is concerned, is a little bit of a lone voice, sticking to its guns of non-renewable resource extraction when the opportunity for diversification into renewables is plain for everyone else to see. If it's a united voice you're after, I'd suggest campaigning for your province (and its eastern neighbour) to emerge from its blinkered "drill, baby, drill" approach to join most of the rest of the country in addressing the climate crisis would be a good place to start. [edited to add] I should acknowledge that Trudeau is not helping either. His desire to be all things to all people has left him looking weak and indecisive on the pipeline issues as well as many other contentious debates among and between Canada's multilayered jurisdictions. The current cluster***** with the Wet'sowet'en protests being a prime example.

Where I suspect we do agree, though, is that the Fed govt needs to provide a great deal more support to Alberta in order to effect that change. When the heavy manufacturing base in southern Ontario fell to pieces (and what's left continues to struggle, with the recent closure of the Oshawa GM plant, for example), provincial and federal governments of assorted political stripes worked together to provide transitional services and facilities to the affected workforce. Decades on, the scars are still visible, in some areas of cities like Hamilton, London and Windsor; but there's a lot more to look forward to than a bleak post-industrial wasteland. Alberta needs economic help to diversify away from a fossil fuel economy; but the Provincial government really needs to engage in a constructive dialogue, rather than a shouting match, with Ottawa to make that happen. And vice-versa, of course