Tag Archives: BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers

Clark Skips Western Premiers’ Conference to Avoid Pipeline, Tanker Talk

May 31, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Christy Clark, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, Politics, rafe mairRafe Mair

The refusal of Premier Clark to represent BC at the annual Western Premiers’ Conference is a disgrace!

This is a very important conference. It allows Premiers to discuss many important issues. No doubt the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines and resultant tanker traffic will be on the agenda and Clark hasn’t the guts to deal with this. This means that when Alberta Premier Alison Redford, who favours the pipelines and tankers, raises this issue, whether on or off the record, there will be no premier of BC to put our views on the table.

It wasn’t until Bill Bennett, in 1976, pressed the matter that BC was even part of this process. I went to all five conferences when I was in cabinet and was made chair of a special WPC committee to assess federal intrusion into provincial constitutional rights which became very important during the later run-up to patriating the Constitution. This is but one example of many where the conference becomes a political power in the country.

Premier Clark has obviously concluded that notwithstanding the photo-ops this conference would provide, the prospect of making an ass of herself is more important.

All British Columbians have been shamed by this bad excuse for a Premier.

Enbridge Unveils Multi-Million Dollar Ad Campaign to Sway Public Opinion in BC

May 30, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, Oil and gasDamien Gillis

Read this story from Mark Hume in the Globe and Mail on Enbridge’s new multi-million dollar ad campaign in an attempt to win the “social license” it recognizes it needs to push its controversial Northern Gateway pipelines through BC. (May 30, 2012)

The battle for the hearts and minds of British Columbians over a proposed oil pipeline has ramped up after Enbridge Inc. launched a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign – and Greenpeace Canada responded by unfurling a giant, eye-catching banner on Lions Gate Bridge.

The tactics revealed on Tuesday by the opposing sides in the debate are dramatically different.

Enbridge is going with a finely crafted print and television campaign created by Kbs+p Canada, with media relations directed by Hill and Knowlton, a leading communications company that claims to have “invented the concept of public relations.”

On the other hand, Greenpeace and others opposed to the Northern Gateway Pipeline proposal to link Alberta’s oil sands to a West Coast tanker port are going with low-budget drama, petitions and social networking.

At the same moment Paul Stanway, an Enbridge spokesman, was unveiling the advertising package in an office tower on the edge of Stanley Park, environmental activists were rappelling down the girders of the bridge on the other side of the park, just a few city blocks away.

The banner flapped in the wind briefly before the Greenpeace climbers, who had been unable to secure the lower edge, pulled it in.

Mr. Stanway said with a smile that he hadn’t had a chance to see the “no tar sands pipelines” banner, but it was clear his company is hoping the ads will have a more lasting impact.

“We need social licence to build this pipeline,” he said in explaining the need for the advertising campaign. “We need public support …This is something we’re more and more focusing on.”

The advertising campaign promises job creation, environmental protection and economic stimulus, linking it all together with a catchy tag line: “It’s more than a pipeline. It’s a path to our future.”

Mr. Stanway said Enbridge is spending “less than $5-million” on the ads, which will run in newspapers and on television over the summer starting on Wednesday, and which may later expand to radio.

Power for Proposed BC LNG Plants Called into Question

May 28, 2012Energy and Resources, Fracking, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, WATERBC Hydro, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, fracking, Oil and gas, Water and EnergyDamien Gillis

Read this op-ed in the Vancouver Sun from Vancouver businessman and Conservative Party of BC candidate Rick Peterson, raising the question of where all the power is going to come from to support the extraordinarily energy-intensive Liquid Natural Gas Plants proposed for BC’s coast. (May 28, 2012)

The Liberal government is pitching Asian investors and buyers on an ambitious plan for a string of proposed LNG plants on the province’s north coast. Premier Christy Clark is saying that the first three of them will be up and running by 2020.

What she’s not saying, though, is how she’ll come up with the huge amounts of electricity required to compress, cool, and liquefy the gas for these new LNG plants. Here’s maybe why: BC Hydro simply doesn’t have the capacity to provide even close to the amount of power required for these projects.

It also has no plan to build or buy the power that would be needed. The first three LNG proposals alone slated for 2020 would require about half of the electricity that’s currently consumed by the entire province.

Through its Canadian subsidiary, Apache Corp., a large U.S. multinational energy giant, and along with partners Encana Corp. and EOG Resources, is proposing to operate the first of the three LNG projects for B.C, to be located in Kitimat. Under the terms of its application, Apache is required to source its electricity from BC Hydro and not ‘self-generate’ power by burning some of its natural gas reserves to create its own energy source.

That’s a nice idea — but how practical is it when B.C., despite having some of the best electricity generating potential in the world, is a net importer of power? And where do we import our power from? From Washington State and Alberta. And how is it generated? By coal-fired power plants, at more than three times the carbon emissions of natural gas generating facilities.

So while the government continues to extol the virtues of requiring our new industry to purchase ‘clean’ electricity from BC Hydro, the planners are quietly working on plans to import more coal-fired electricity from out of province. Go figure.

If you go to Google Earth and look at the Pacific North West and Alberta, you’ll see no borders. Pollution and carbon emissions know no borders as well. Our policies should reflect this.

BC Liberals Disguised Oil and Gas Support with Fake Green Label

May 27, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, WATER, Western CanadaBC Hydro, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, ipp, Oil and gas, Politics, private river power, Water and EnergyKevin Logan

In my last piece, “The myth of BC Liberal ‘nuetrality’ on Enbridge”, we established that not only are the BC Liberals far from neutral, but rather have been and continue to be complicit in a complex web of legal, administrative and political strategies designed to forward a multi-billion dollar infrastructure development program to enrich the largest most profitable companies on earth at the expense of our Province’s autonomy, economy and environment.

Since revealing some of the details that support these claims, issues have been unfolding rapidly on a number of fronts.

The NDP has established a “legal team” to look into some of the issues I specifically raised in the piece. This undertaking should fully explore and divulge the many maneuvers the BC Liberals have undertaken over the span of both Gordon Campbell’s and Christy Clark’s time in office which support the largest, most aggressive oil and gas agenda Canadians have ever experienced. As the issues come to the fore from this process I will continue to explore the history of the BC Liberals’ complicity in the oil and gas agenda.

Specifically, BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix singled out one pressing issue – the Equivalency Agreement (EA) I and others have worked to bring attention to. This is an action item. Part of the Liberal ‘missing in action’ strategy, defined by the Official Opposition as Government gone “AWOL”, is to let the EA stand despite recent changes by the Harper government which have fatally jeopardized its legitimacy. In legal terms, if BC continues to accept that they have no role or influence while letting the political and jurisdictional wrangling continue unabated, our ability to shape the future of these developments will be further eroded.

While there was significant foreshadowing of the BC Liberal desire to streamline approval processes, it was done under the guise of a clean energy strategy. In the 2010 Speech from the Throne, the BC Liberals included their desire to establish Equivalency Agreements in order to overcome “Byzantine” bureaucratic bungling that thwarted the much lauded Climate Change Strategy. Never mind that longstanding bureaucrats responsible for administering these processes see no need for such changes, as duplication was long ago eliminated and further streamlining is hardly required in functional terms.

2010 also saw the implementation of the Clean Energy Act and much to do about the green legacy Campbell was establishing; little known to us then was the fact that the augmented approval processes where going to be applied to infrastructure projects to export Alberta’s Dilbit, hardly clean and far from green. In fact, it appears the BC Liberals used their Climate Change Strategy roll-out to couch the required notice needed for the Equivalency Agreement that is now being applied to the Enbridge Pipeline Project, which may explain why no input from stakeholders ever occurred in the 60 days thereafter – a requirement laid out in the act in order to enable these agreements.

At the time, it was difficult to see through the puff and pageantry that surrounded the Climate Change Strategy and Clean Energy developments. There was a great deal of very public support for what amounted to a privatized power agenda for some of the largest companies on earth – and a mere two years later we are seeing the that the Clean, Green Energy strategy has served privatized power well.

In the next three months, British Columbians will be forking over 180 million dollars to private power producers, paying between $68-100 per Megawatt hour, meanwhile spot markets are hovering around 8 dollars per MWh. Hence, BC Hydro (read you) will be footing the bill for a mark-up of at least 700%! The Campbell “Green” strategy clearly becomes more about cold hard cash for private energy corporations than anything remotely environmentally related.

Meanwhile the environment Minister remains “Mum” on the current Joint Review Panel for the propsed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipelines. This despite having revealed his efforts to grease the skids of the project and the uncovering of his government’s coy ‘duck and cover’ media manipulation with respect to Northern Gateway. As a recent letter writer in the Burnaby Now enunciates, “BC Must Take a Stand Now” – in order to pull out of the EA process which affects four major oil and gas developments. However, he closes the piece saying he does not expect the government to do it.

And nor do I, which is why I went to great lengths to point out how the EA was established and how we might simply render it null and void.

Need further proof that this government will once again sit on its hands and look the other way while our sovereignty continues to erode? Then simply read this excerpt from the Premier’s response to Robyn Allan, whose open letter called for the revoking of the EA:

We appreciate the time that you have taken to share your views and insight with us and have forwarded your correspondence to the Honourable Terry Lake, Minister of Environment, for his review and consideration as well. You can be assured that the specific points you have raised in your letter will be included in related discussions between Minister Lake, members of his senior staff and officials in the Provincial Environmental Assessment Office.

A diplomatic PFO if I ever saw one. Ms. Allan had to follow up and re-request an actual response from the parties responsible for signing away our right to properly assess, participate and influence the single most pivotal development agenda in the Province’s history. Here is an excerpt of that re-request:

I am following up with you as the reply indicates that you will review and consider the letter and discuss the points with your officials. However, it does not confirm that you will address my comments in a reply to me.

Robyn Allan has an impressive breadth of hands-on experience and professional training which dictates her belief that if we do not move now to revoke the EA we will have lost one of our final opportunities to restore our decision-making capacity. This is of great importance and I look forward to hearing exactly what the newly established legal team Dix has appointed does in order to ensure this opportunity is not missed.

Everyday British Columbians can act now and pressure those in political office to move on this and if the BC Liberals do not revoke the agreement we can shine the light on how it was established outside the norm – as I did in my last piece – which may work to render it null and void.

Pro-Oil Side a No-Show at Business Community Pipeline, Tanker Discussion

May 25, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Vancouver Observer on a meeting hosted this week by the Board of Change – a Vancouver-based group of progressive businesspeople concerned about environmental issues – to discuss the pros and cons of new oil pipelines and coastal tankers in BC. (May 25, 2012)

A collection of business-minded Vancouverites gathered at the SAP building in Yaletown Thursday evening, hoping for a lively—and perhaps heated—debate about the merits of pipeline and tankers on the BC coast.

There was just one small problem: almost everybody in the room was on the same side.

The evening’s panel discussion was hosted by the Vancouver Board of Change, a network of local businesses, nonprofits, and students dedicated to the pursuit of both money and meaning. Panelists included outspoken political commentator Rafe Mair; ecologist and author Rex Weyler; and Art Steritt, Executive Director of the Coastal First Nations.

Organizers said they requested the participation of several different companies and individuals to speak to some of the “pro-pipeline” arguments, during a discussion focused on BC’s two major project proposals (the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline to Kitimat, and Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion terminating in Vancouver).

Unfortunately, not one of the people or groups they asked actually agreed to take part.

“We asked 15 or 16 organizations and people on the pro side, and nobody said yes,” explained Board of Change director Monika Marcovici.

For a while, the Board was hopeful that North Vancouver blogger Vivian Krause would attend to share her views on the pipeline and politics. But in the end, Krause said she couldn’t make it.

“Everyone has an excuse,” Marcovici said.

In an effort to balance the scales, moderator Robb Lucy introduced the idea of having audience members don their oil industry hats to ask some tough questions, since all three panelists shared the same “no pipeline, no tankers” perspective. Many of the people in the audience were Board of Change members, and organizers hoped this event would help clarify the issues so that the group would feel comfortable taking an official position.

Kinder morgan Scales Down Vancouver Pipeline Plan from 850,000 Barrels a Day to 750,000

May 24, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, KinderMorgan, Oil and gasCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on Kinder Morgan’s decision to scale back the planned capacity for its new twinned pipeline to Vancouver from 850,000 barrels of Tar Sands crude per day to 750,000, following lower than expected demand from shippers. (May 24, 2012)

Kinder Morgan Energy Partners has reduced the size of a planned expansion of its pipeline to the Pacific Coast after fewer shippers than expected signed 20-year con-tracts that would allow surging oil supplies to be shipped to Asia, the company said on Wednesday.

Kinder Morgan now plans a $4.1-billion expansion of its Trans Mountain pipeline to the Vancouver area from Alberta, increasing capacity to 750,000 barrels a day from 300,000. That is down from last month’s estimate of 850,000.

It had expected enough con-tracts to support a $5-billion project with crude production from the Alberta oilsands forecast to more than double over the next decade. But a few potential shippers it thought would sign onto the lengthy obligations had failed to obtain their boards’ approvals by the deadline, prompting the reduction, Kinder Morgan said.

The Trans Mountain expansion is the second multibillion-dollar proposal aimed at opening up lucrative new markets in Asia for Canadian oil producers, now captive to U.S. customers amid a glut that has led to bargain-basement price discounts.

The first, Enbridge Inc’s $5.5-billion Northern Gate-way pipeline to Kitimat from Alberta is the subject of public hearings that began in January.

Both projects face opposition from environmental groups and some native communities in British Columbia. Vancouver city council has also come out against the Kinder expansion, which would increase tanker traffic in the city’s harbour.

Ottawa has signalled strong support for new pipelines to the West Coast, and is making changes to regulatory reviews aimed at speeding up approvals.

Cartoon: Who you callin’ Goofy? Clark vs. Mulcair on expanding the Tar Sands

May 23, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Tar Sands, Western CanadaAlberta Tar Sands, BC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Cartoon, Christy Clark, Enbridge, Oil and gas, Politics, Thomas MulcairCommon Sense Canadian

Last week, BC Premier Christy Clark attacked Federal NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair for raising the economic downside of becoming a petro-state – namely, the phenomenon known as “Dutch Disease”. Speaking to CBC’s Evan Solomon, Clark referred to Mulcair as “goofy” for questioning the unrestrained expansion of the Alberta Tar Sands to new markets in Asia.

Bitumen Spills from Enbridge, Kinder Morgan Are Certain Disasters Waiting to Happen

May 19, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, rafe mairRafe Mair

I urge you to read again Rex Weyler’s blog on the Common Sense Canadian on the consequences of a bitumen spill in Vancouver Harbour. And “consequences” should very much on our minds, front and centre.

We are talking three pipelines and two tanker routes.

For the Northern Gateway project we have two pipelines. The reason is that bitumen, the Tar Sands gunk, is too thick to transfer and must have what they call “condensate” mixed in to move it. This natural gas addition does nothing to reduce the damage if there’s a leak or a rupture. Thus Enbridge takes the mixture, known as diluted bitumen (Dilbit), to Kitimat while pumping “condensate” imported by tanker to the Tar Sands by a second pipeline. This highly toxic Dilbit substance will move in huge tankers down what is probably the most dangerous coastline in the world.

The other pipeline is the old Trans Mountain pipeline now used by Kinder Morgan company (a clone of the disgraced Enron) and, if their latest application is accepted, will be twinning that line, thereby increasing their shipping capacity from current levels of 300,000 barrels a day to 850,000 barrels a day, with a tanker a day going through the treacherous Second Narrows.

It is not my intention here to discuss the risks involved in these three pipelines and two tanker routes – there is no need to because ruptures and spills are a lead pipe certainty. The only issue is clean-up.

Anthony Swift writes for Switchboard, which is the staff blog of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the US’s most effective environmental group. Here’s what he has to say on clean-up:

Raw tar sands bitumen is nearly solid at room temperature and must be diluted with toxic natural gas liquids to create the thick sludge that travels in high pressure pipelines. This sludge is between fifty and seventy times as thick as conventional crude oil. When spilled, the light natural gas liquid in the tar sands vaporizes, creating a toxic flammable gas that poses a health hazard to emergency responders and nearby landowners. The bitumen, which is heavier than water, sinks into rivers and mixes with sediments. Bitumen contains significantly more heavy metals than conventional crudes and does not biodegrade. (emphasis mine)

This is an oversimplification but this may help – with ordinary crude, a process called “rafting” is used, whereby the spilled crude oil is pushed into a smaller area then removed. Even then, as the Exxon Valdez demonstrated, only a relatively small proportion of the spill can be cleaned up. Unfortunately bitumen sinks, so rafting is of no use.

It’s like a clear cut without reforestation. It’s death.

The bottom line is this: spills or ruptures are certain and the damage immense and all but impossible to clean up.

This is what Prime Minister Harper wants to have approved quickly and his poodle, Premier Clark, because she needs Harper’s generosity over the HST mess.

We simply cannot let these catastrophes happen to us.

Stephen Hume on Risks of an Oil Spill

May 16, 2012Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and SupertankersBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gasDamien Gillis

Read this editorial from Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun on the debate over the risks posed by increased oil tanker traffic on BC’s coast (May 16, 2012)

Listen to the rhetoric generated by questions about the risk from supertankers carrying an additional million barrels a day of heavy oil through B.C. waters and one might be persuaded that a conspiracy of Luddite dunces advocates a return to mud huts and riding donkeys to work.

Huh? How does asking for an unbiased evaluation of risk mutate into an assumed automatic veto of the use of oil?

The point is not whether we should or should not use oil – it’s whether the risks of using a particular oil resource in a particular way under particular circumstances may or may not out-weigh the claimed benefits.

Proponents of these pipelines naturally minimize the risks. And why wouldn’t they present the best possible case for their projects since they want them to proceed? But that doesn’t mean that B.C.’s public – which ultimately will pay the costs for cleaning up any major spill while the foreign-owned proponents pocket the bulk of profits and pay them out of the country – should swallow such assertions at face value.

Nor does it mean that subjecting such schemes to rigorous scrutiny is some kind of betrayal of Canadian society.

There is risk. And there is risk. Jaywalking downtown at 3 a.m. carries significantly less risk than jaywalking on the free-way during rush hour. One risk might be acceptable, the other looks like stupidity. Among the issues emerging from the present pipeline debate is the question of whether the risks cited by the proponents are the actual risks and potential liabilities.

Proponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, for example, postulate a worst-case spill of limited size that occurs in sheltered waters during the calmest summer months.

Critics reasonably ask what the consequences – and costs – of a spill would be were a super-tanker to break up during winter on the exposed outer coast, where winds, tides and currents have the capacity to distribute heavy oil over a vast area.

Critics reasonably wonder whether the assessment of risks, both environmental and economic, and who bears the brunt of them, takes place in an unbiased forum given the official demonizing of those expressing doubt.

The principal demonizer – our federal government – has now arbitrarily rewritten the rules to both redefine the criteria for environmental assessment while usurping the final decision-making power from the body intended to do so at arm’s length.

The province has not even sub-mitted its position to the Joint Review Panel on this incredibly important subject. Instead, it has surrendered to the federal power its right to hold an independent environmental review in the interests of British Columbians.

Yet the risks could be far greater than those framed in the documents filed by the proponents.

Alberta Oil Magazine: Christy Clark Floats Tar Sands Revenue Sharing for BC

May 15, 2012Canada, Energy and Resources, Oil&Gas, Pipelines and Supertankers, Politics, Western CanadaBC Oil Pipelines and Supertankers, Christy Clark, Enbridge, KinderMorgan, Oil and gas, PoliticsCommon Sense Canadian

Read this story from Alberta Oil Magazine on BC Premier Christy Clark’s idea that BC could share in resource revenues from Alberta Tar Sands to help compensate the province for risks associated with piping and shipping bitumen across BC and down its coast. (May 14, 2012)

British Columbia Premier Christy Clark is becoming a particularly uncomfortable thorn in Alberta’s side.

In a wide-ranging interview with Brian Hutchinson at the National Post, the B.C. Liberal Party leader suggests – without explicitly saying so – that her government will not lend its support to Enbridge Inc.’s $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline without first seeing a commitment to oil sands royalty sharing.

“Because at the moment, what we know about it is, we’re moving an Alberta product through British Columbia, with no value added in our province, and we’re taking 100 per cent of the risk,” she said.

Clark is understandably reluctant to back the Pacific-bound oil sands pipeline. With a provincial election on the horizon, Hutchinson notes, polls show the B.C. Liberals trailing a resurgent New Democratic party. Adrian Dix, the NDP leader, is blunt about his party’s opposition to the Gateway scheme.

From an April 30 caucus letter submitted to the Gateway Joint Review Panel:

We believe that the NGP will cause significant adverse economic and environmental effects and is not in the public interest. Therefore the NGP should not be permitted to proceed.

Against this backdrop, Clark has wholeheartedly endorsed plans to liquefy and ship tanker-loads of super-cooled natural gas to many of the same markets targeted by Enbridge.

The B.C. premier is so enthusiastic about LNG that she is prepared to alter the western province’s climate-change policies to take credit for greenhouse-gas reductions in countries that import B.C. gas, Justine Hunter reports at the Globe and Mail.

Overlooked in her zeal for natural gas – a jobs plan calls for three LNG terminals to be built by 2020 – is the fact that a good deal of B.C. exports currently pass through Alberta (via the Alliance Pipeline) en route to the Chicago market.

The Common Sense Canadian

Critical discussion of key issues shaping our economy and environment.