Connect with us
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=12]

Energy

Canada could have been an energy superpower. Instead we became a bystander

Published

15 minute read

This article was originally published in a collected volume, Canada’s Governance Crisis, which outlines Canada’s policy paralysis across a wide range of government priorities. Read the full paper here.

From the MacDonald-Laurier Institute

By Heather Exner-Pirot

Government has imposed a series of regulatory burdens on the energy industry, creating confusion, inefficiency, and expense

Oil arguably remains the most important commodity in the world today. It paved the way for the industrialization and globalization trends of the post-World War II era, a period that saw the fastest human population growth and largest reduction in extreme poverty ever. Its energy density, transportability, storability, and availability have made oil the world’s greatest source of energy, used in every corner of the globe.

There are geopolitical implications inherent in a commodity of such significance and volume. The contemporary histories of Russia, Iran, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq are intertwined with their roles as major oil producers, roles that they have used to advance their (often illiberal) interests on the world stage. It is fair to ask why Canada has never seen fit to advance its own values and interests through its vast energy reserves. It is easy to conclude that its reluctance to do so has been a major policy failure.

Canada has been blessed with the world’s third largest reserves of oil, the vast majority of which are in the oil sands of northern Alberta, although there is ample conventional oil across Western Canada and offshore Newfoundland and Labrador as well. The oil sands contain 1.8 trillion barrels of oil, of which just under 10 percent, or 165 billion barrels, are technically and economically recoverable with today’s technology. Canada currently extracts over 1 billion barrels of that oil each year.

The technology necessary to turn the oil sands into bitumen that could then be exported profitably really took off in the early 2000s. Buoyed by optimism of its potential, then Prime Minister Stephen Harper pronounced in July 2006 that Canada would soon be an “energy superproducer.” A surge of investment came to the oil sands during the commodity supercycle of 2000-2014, which saw oil peak at a price of $147/barrel in 2008. For a few good years, average oil prices sat just below $100 a barrel. Alberta was booming until it crashed.

Two things happened that made Harper’s prediction fall apart. The first was the shale revolution – the combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that made oil from the vast shale reserves in the United States economical to recover. Until then, the US had been the world’s biggest energy importer. In 2008 it was producing just 5 million barrels of crude oil a day, and had to import 10 million barrels a day to meet its ravenous need. Shale changed that, and the US is now the world’s biggest oil producer, expecting to hit a production level of 12.4 million barrels a day in 2023.

For producers extracting oil from the oil sands, the shale revolution was a terrible outcome. Just as new major oil sands projects were coming online and were producing a couple of million barrels a day, our only oil customer was becoming energy self-sufficient.

Because the United States was such a reliable and thirsty oil consumer, it never made sense for Canada to export its oil to any other nation, and the country never built the pipeline or export terminal infrastructure to do so. Our southern neighbour wanted all we produced. But the cheap shale oil that flooded North America in the 2010s made that dependence a huge mistake as other markets would have proven to be more profitable.

If shale oil took a hatchet to the Canadian oil industry, the election of the Liberals in 2015 brought on its death by a thousand cuts. For the last eight years, federal policies have incrementally and cumulatively damaged the domestic oil and gas sector. With the benefit of hindsight in 2023, it is obvious that this has had major consequences for global energy security, as well as opportunity costs for Canadian foreign policy.

Once the shale revolution began in earnest, the urgency in the sector to be able to export oil to any other market than the United States led to proposals for the Northern Gateway, Energy East, and TMX pipelines. Opposition from Quebec and BC killed Energy East and Northern Gateway, respectively. The saga of TMX may finally end this year, as it is expected to go into service in late 2023, billions of dollars over cost and years overdue thanks to regulatory and jurisdictional hurdles.

Because Canada has been stuck selling all of its oil to the United States, it does so at a huge discount, known as a differential. That discount hit a staggering US$46 per barrel difference in October 2018, when WTI (West Texas Intermediate) oil was selling for $57 a barrel, but we could only get $11 for WCS (Western Canada Select). The lack of pipelines and the resulting differential created losses to the Canadian economy of $117 billion between 2011 and 2018, according to Frank McKenna, former Liberal New Brunswick Premier and Ambassador to the United States, and now Deputy Chairman of TD Bank.

The story is not dissimilar with liquefied natural gas (LNG). While both the United States and Canada had virtually no LNG export capacity in 2015, the United States has since grown to be the world’s biggest LNG exporter, helping Europe divest itself of its reliance on Russian gas and making tens of billions of dollars in the process. Canada still exports none, with regulatory uncertainty and slow timelines killing investor interest. In fact, the United States imports Canadian natural gas – which it buys for the lowest prices in the world due to that differential problem – and then resells it to our allies for a premium.

Canada’s inability to build pipelines and export capacity is a major problem on its own. But the federal government has also imposed a series of regulatory burdens and hurdles on the industry, one on top of the other, creating confusion, inefficiency, and expense. It has become known in Alberta as a “stacked pancake” approach.

The first major burden was Bill C-48, the tanker moratorium. In case anyone considered reviving the Northern Gateway project, the Liberal government banned oil tankers from loading anywhere between the northernmost point of Vancouver Island to the BC-Alaska border. That left a pathway only for TMX, which goes through Vancouver, amidst fierce local opposition. I have explained it to my American colleagues this way: imagine if Texas was landlocked, and all its oil exports had to go west through California, but the federal government banned oil tankers from loading anywhere on the Californian coast except through ports in San Francisco. That is what C-48 did in Canada.

Added to Bill C-48 was Bill C-69, known colloquially as the “no new pipelines” bill and now passed as the Impact Assessment Act, which has successfully deterred investment in the sector. It imposes new and often opaque regulatory requirements, such as having to conduct a gender-based analysis before proceeding with new projects to determine how different genders will experience them: “a way of thinking, as opposed to a unique set of prescribed methods,” according to the federal government. It also provides for a veto from the Environment and Climate Change Canada Minister – currently, Steven Guilbeault – on any new in situ oil sands projects or interprovincial or international pipelines, regardless of the regulatory agency’s recommendation.

The Alberta Court of Appeal has determined that the act is unconstitutional, and eight other provinces are joining in its challenge. But so far it is the law of the land, and investors are allergic to it.

Federal carbon pricing, and Alberta’s federally compatible alternative for large emitters, the TIER (Technology Innovation and Emissions Reduction) Regulation, was added next, though this regulation makes sense for advancing climate goals. It is the main driver for encouraging emission reductions, and includes charges for excess emissions as well as credits for achieving emissions below benchmark. It may be costly for producers, but from an economic perspective, of all the climate policies carbon pricing is the most efficient.

Industry has committed to their shareholders that they will reduce emissions; their social license and their investment attractiveness depends to some degree on it. The major oil sands companies have put forth a credible plan to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. One conventional operation in Alberta is already net zero thanks to its use of carbon capture technology. Having a predictable and recognized price on carbon is also providing incentives to a sophisticated carbon tech industry in Canada, which can make money by finding smart ways to sequester and use carbon.

In theory, carbon pricing should succeed in reducing emissions in the most efficient way possible. Yet the federal government keeps adding more policies on top of carbon pricing. The Canadian Clean Fuel Standard, introduced in 2022, mandates that fuel suppliers must lower the “lifecycle intensity” of their fuels, for example by blending them with biofuels, or investing in hydrogen, renewables, and carbon capture. This standard dictates particular policy solutions, causes the consumer price of fuels to increase, facilitates greater reliance on imports of biofuels, and conflicts with some provincial policies. It is also puts new demands on North American refinery capacity, which is already highly constrained.

The newest but perhaps most damaging proposal is for an emissions cap, which seeks to reduce emissions solely from the oil and gas sector by 42 percent by 2030. This target far exceeds what is possible with carbon capture in that time frame, and can only be achieved through a dramatic reduction in production. The emissions cap is an existential threat to Canada’s oil and gas industry, and it comes at a time when our allies are trying, and failing, to wean themselves off of Russian oil. The economic damage to the Canadian economy is hard to overestimate.

Oil demand is growing, and even in the most optimistic forecasts it will continue to grow for another decade before plateauing. Our European and Asian allies are already dangerously reliant on Russia and Middle Eastern states for their oil. American shale production is peaking, and will soon start to decline. Low investment levels in global oil exploration and production, due in part to ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and climate polices, are paving the way for shortages by mid-decade.

An energy crisis is looming. Canada is not too late to be the energy superproducer the democratic world needs in order to prosper and be secure. We need more critical minerals, hydrogen, hydro, and nuclear power. But it is essential that we export globally significant levels of oil and LNG as well, using carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) wherever possible.

Meeting this goal will require a very different approach than the one currently taken by the federal government: it must be an approach that encourages growth and exports even as emissions are reduced. What the government has done instead is deter investment, dampen competitiveness, and hand market share to Russia and OPEC.

Heather Exner-Pirot is Director of Energy, Natural Resources and Environment at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

Business

Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ – Good News for Canadian Energy and Great News for WCSB Natural Gas

Published on

By Maureen McCall

April 2 was ‘Liberation Day’ according to U.S. President Donald Trump.  While the announcement of U.S. reciprocal tariffs was not good news for many countries, Trump’s announcement also had some good news for Canadian Energy companies – 0% tariffs.  Some tariffs against Canada are still in place, but for now, no energy sector tariffs against Canada underscores the importance of Canadian energy to the Trump administration.

President Trump announced new tariffs on April 2nd, which he dubbed “Liberation Day” with a 10% baseline tariff for all U.S. trading partners, to go into effect on April 5th. He also announced more reciprocal tariffs against the “worst offenders,” which will go into effect on April 9th but no tariffs on Canadian energy were announced.

Trump’s Reciprocal Tariffs Announcement

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith celebrated the win which she says is precisely what she has been advocating for from the U.S. Administration for months.

“The United States has decided to uphold the majority of the free trade agreement (CUSMA) between our two nations. It also appears this will continue to be the case until after the Canadian Federal election has concluded and the newly elected Canadian government is able to renegotiate CUSMA with the U.S. Administration. It means that the majority of goods sold into the United States from Canada will have no tariffs applied to them, including 0% tariffs on energy, minerals, agricultural products, uranium, seafood, potash and a host of other Canadian goods.”

This is great news for Canadian energy producers, especially natural gas producers who are experiencing dramatic growth in the Montney.

At this year’s S&P Global CERAWeek, Mike Verney, Executive Vice-President of petroleum reserves with McDaniel & Associates Consultants Ltd. had great news for Canadian companies.

McDaniel’s study, commissioned by the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER), reported data indicating that Alberta has proven natural gas reserves of 130 trillion cubic feet (TCF), compared to previous provincial estimates of only 24 TCF. According to the study, if probable gas reserves are added in, the overall figure is 144 TCF.

As reported in the Financial Post, Verney said “We’re growing like mad in the Montney. The major natural gas plays in the U.S. are actually declining versus the Montney that is actually growing.”

This message was echoed by Michael Rose, the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tourmaline Oil,  Canada’s largest natural gas producer during his keynote address at the SPE Canadian Energy Technology Conference and Exhibition last month in Calgary.

Not a Sunset Industry

Michael Rose – Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tourmaline Oil

Rose opened his keynote speech with optimism saying: “This is not a sunset industry- it is closer to sunrise than sunset” and spoke about Canada’s compelling opportunity for natural gas production as well as Tourmaline’s successes.

Reuters reports that analysts are wondering about the U.S.’s ability to meet the demand growth of booming liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and also to meet huge domestic demand for natural gas-fired electricity generation to supply new data centre growth. Canada’s resources in Alberta’s Deep Basin and the North East BC Montney will be a huge supply source.

Deep Basin and the Montney are where the most competitive gas plays are found, and where Tourmaline operates as well as producing oil in the Peace River Triassic Lake.

Rose credits technology development and the building and ownership of midstream infrastructures as keys to affordability and profitability for Canadian companies which can control costs by controlling more of the production cycle. In addition, AI optimization has helped the company increase production. He also pointed out the environmental advantage of natural gas production. Since society needs the energy density of hydrocarbons to power industries, natural gas is the best choice as it is “the cleanest member of the fossil fuel stack.” He quoted Arjun Murti– 30 year Wall Street research analyst, buy-side investor, and advisor covering the global energy sector now with Veriten.com who asserts that there is no real energy transition and the only thing humans have actually transitioned off in the energy world is whale oil.

Rose said that 2022 statistics indicated the world set a record for all sources of energy. He pointed out that coal was supposed to replace wood 200 years ago, and it still hasn’t while wood, which has been renamed as biomass is still 7% of the overall energy stack.

The Golden Age of Gas

Rose’s natural gas outlook to 2028 in Canada was rosy saying gas “never looked better.” Beyond 2028 also looks good with a proliferation of electricity generation planned to feed data centre growth. In Alberta alone, 15 projects are in queue which will create a material increase in demand. In the U.S. however, some large U.S. natural gas supply basins have reached a tipping point with only 50% estimated ultimate recovery (EUR) left. Rose reported that drilling inventory is an issue in the U.S. but not in Canada. For example, Tourmaline has over 20 years of Tier 1 drilling inventory left while its U.S. peers don’t have the same luxury. He noted that U.S. M&A is currently driven by a quest for inventory. He noted that U.S. companies will chase profitable acquisitions in a quest for inventory to lower future costs saying “Things are still cheap in Canada.”

Canadian Resources – Will we ever be an energy superpower?

With global exploration down sharply, focus has turned to the WCSB where in the case of the Montney, only 5% has been produced so far.

“All you hear about is the western Canadian sedimentary basin and it is a monster, and it is the gift that keeps on giving, but we’re actually blessed with multiple other opportunities. Like the U.S., a number of them are off limits for government policy reasons, but certainly changes are in order.”

Some of the undeveloped basins in Canada which Rose referred to as “forbidden basins” are located on the West Coast and in the lowlands in Quebec. The tariff issue may be changing attitudes towards oil and gas development in those areas. Dealing with an unsupportive Federal Government for the last decade has made capital attraction difficult. Routine talk about phasing out Oil and Gas and the series of regulations, bills and initiatives that have stalled basin development and new pipelines have taken its toll. It has discouraged capital from flowing into the sector – a period that Rose said “ felt like an endless hurricane.”

So what is the right path forward?

The challenge for industry and policymakers is finding the right balance between energy and the environment according to Rose. He advises that setting unrealistic goals and timelines that are not based in science/technology or economics won’t work, and notes a shift away from the time frame set by net zero.

“We look at the whole environment, air, land and water, and we develop plans to improve performance in all three. We have a group of young engineers working on what amounts to an embedded clean tech business within our company, and I think they’re having a lot of fun doing it.”

One of Tourmaline’s longest initiatives, is the conversion of drilling rigs from diesel to natural gas, using field gas for fuel. The result is that projects have an improved economic return as well as reduced emissions. Rose says this year, Tourmaline will cross a “200 million barrier” and will have displaced 200 million litres of diesel and save $200 million including the makeup gas used. He says they like to think of it as a drill bit to burn initiative.

Mike Rose still had an optimistic view of the path forward for energy companies that is certainly more relevant after yesterday’s “Liberation Day” announcement from Trump.

“We’ve missed 10 years of opportunities,” Rose said. “It would have made us so much stronger than we are today as an industry and a country. Still, late is better than never. The only thing I’ll say about tariffs is that they are just another curve ball. We’ve had nothing but curve balls for 10 years, and we’ll figure out how to hit this one too. Given how integrated both countries’ energy systems are and will continue to be, I think a great narrative that just might appeal is: ‘Let’s make North America the world’s preeminent energy and oil and gas superpower’.”


Maureen McCall is an energy professional who writes on issues affecting the energy industry.

Continue Reading

Canadian Energy Centre

Saskatchewan Indigenous leaders urging need for access to natural gas

Published on

Piapot First Nation near Regina, Saskatchewan. Photo courtesy Piapot First Nation/Facebook

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Cody Ciona and Deborah Jaremko

“Come to my nation and see how my people are living, and the struggles that they have day to day out here because of the high cost of energy, of electric heat and propane.”

Indigenous communities across Canada need access to natural gas to reduce energy poverty, says a new report by Energy for a Secure Future (ESF).

It’s a serious issue that needs to be addressed, say Indigenous community and business leaders in Saskatchewan.

“We’re here today to implore upon the federal government that we need the installation of natural gas and access to natural gas so that we can have safe and reliable service,” said Guy Lonechild, CEO of the Regina-based First Nations Power Authority, on a March 11 ESF webinar.

Last year, 20 Saskatchewan communities moved a resolution at the Assembly of First Nations’ annual general assembly calling on the federal government to “immediately enhance” First Nations financial supports for “more desirable energy security measures such as natural gas for home heating.”

“We’ve been calling it heat poverty because that’s what it really is…our families are finding that they have to either choose between buying groceries or heating their home,” Chief Christine Longjohn of Sturgeon Lake First Nation said in the ESF report.

“We should be able to live comfortably within our homes. We want to be just like every other homeowner that has that choice to be able to use natural gas.”

At least 333 First Nations communities across Canada are not connected to natural gas utilities, according to the Canada Energy Regulator (CER).

ESF says that while there are many federal programs that help cover the upfront costs of accessing electricity, primarily from renewable sources, there are no comparable ones to support natural gas access.

“Most Canadian and Indigenous communities support actions to address climate change. However, the policy priority of reducing fossil fuel use has had unintended consequences,” the ESF report said.

“Recent funding support has been directed not at improving reliability or affordability of the energy, but rather at sustainability.”

Natural gas costs less than half — or even a quarter — of electricity prices in Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, according to CER data.

“Natural gas is something NRCan [Natural Resources Canada] will not fund. It’s not considered a renewable for them,” said Chief Mark Fox of the Piapot First Nation, located about 50 kilometres northeast of Regina.

“Come to my nation and see how my people are living, and the struggles that they have day to day out here because of the high cost of energy, of electric heat and propane.”

According to ESF, some Indigenous communities compare the challenge of natural gas access to the multiyear effort to raise awareness and, ultimately funding, to address poor water quality and access on reserve.

“Natural gas is the new water,” Lonechild said.

Continue Reading

Trending

X