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Canada’s ‘want’ list; CAPP wants industry growth to double by 2020
Gary Park for Petroleum News
Canada’s energy powers have laid it on the line for Alberta Premier Rachel Notley as she gears up for a spring election.
Acting through their lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, companies such as Suncor Energy and Canadian Natural Resources have emphatically challenged the province’s climate policies and corporate tax hikes.
“What we want to put forward today is a vision for the future,” said Tim McMillan, president of CAPP.
He said his organization is not attempting to align itself with any one political party, but the recommendations target policies implemented by the Notley administration since it won election almost four years ago.
While side-stepping comment on specific issues, Notley agreed with CAPP “on a lot of things” and disagreed on others, saying “that doesn’t mean that we can’t find ways to work productively with (industry) players to help build our economy.”
In releasing the tightly worded eight-page document, CAPP urged action on 16 proposals, calling for completion of six new crude pipelines out of Alberta, starting with TransCanada’s Keystone XL to the U.S. Gulf Coast, Enbridge’s Line 3 and the Trans Mountain expansion. The three systems would add 1.8 billion barrels per day to Canada’s exports.
As well, it said government support is needed for three entirely new pipelines to tanker ports on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, plus four LNG terminals.
“Alberta has an opportunity to become one of the most attractive places in the world for oil and natural gas investment, but only if Albertans vote for energy in the next provincial election (expected in the March-May period),” CAPP said.
The “want” list said regulatory processes should be cut in half and costs reduced by C$2 billion, while urging Alberta to “assert” its constitutional authority over the development of energy resources.
Goal: Doubled growth rate CAPP’s objective is to double the industry’s growth rate by 2020, turning Canada into the world’s fourth largest oil producer.
McMillan noted that the International Energy Association recently bucked demands for a scaling back of world fossil fuel production by estimating that under current and planned government policies, global energy demand will rise by 25 percent over the next 20 years - far above the level that environmentalists say would accelerate climate change trends.
“Canada is uniquely positioned to develop technologies” that would lower carbon emissions on a per barrel basis, he said.
The recommendations make no mention of Alberta’s proposed carbon taxes and a plan which sets an annual limit of 100 million metric tons of emissions from the oil sands.
“We support a made-in-Alberta plan that is applied in parallel to other competing jurisdictional climate policies and progress on access to markets,” CAPP said.
McMillan told the Globe and Mail that his group wants the current or any future Alberta government to examine the investment environment, noting that under President Donald Trump the United States has undertaken “major tax reform” that has attracted more drilling rigs to the U.S.
- GARY PARK
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