In today’s episode, the Substack Shipping News follows the major project-fantasyland adventures of anti-oil, net-zero-carbon politicians in an apparent embrace of a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline in Canada.
An improbable storyline, you say?
Could the two camps really join hands to provide Canadian energy access to the global marketplace?
Judging by previous NDP and Liberal party adventures in the land of fossil fuel market maximization, the answer is no.
But stay tuned.
This week’s episode features Alberta’s latest pitch to get its oil riches to tidewater and into world markets beyond the United States.
Its northern option, having been sandbagged and derailed at every turn by governments, activists and Indigenous groups, even though it is the shortest to market and therefore the most cost-effective route, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is proposing a southern B.C. pipeline option.
Starting in Bruderheim, northeast of Edmonton, and running to B.C.’s Roberts Bank, Alberta ’s pipeline plan B 2.0 parallels the existing Trans Mountain corridor.
Expect it to encounter parallel opposition and grievance. Rehashing anti-enterprise battles that undermine the country’s productivity and prosperity has become a Canadian specialty.
Pipeline pipe dream aficionados will recall the parade of trials and tribulations that stalled the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX).
Economists and folk who value the efficient use of taxpayer dollars will lament the resulting waste of those dollars engineered by the federal Liberal government.
As a summary reminder, a TMX originally estimated to cost $5.4 billion ended up limping across the finish line at closer to $34 billion.
Another reminder: those were not private investment dollars incinerated; they are taxpayer dollars.
The same inflation multiplication players on the federal side are back at it. This time, however, with the spectre of an Alberta separation referendum clouding the horizon.
That has complicated the energy superpower tap dance for Net-Zero Carney Canada.
Difficult dance steps, indeed, for Prime Minister Mark Carney. More “catalyzing” cooperation and taxpayer investment in B.C. and Alberta initiatives required.
Thus, Carney Canada’s agreement with Alberta to pursue that southern pipeline route.
But not without ensuring that the premium for Canadian crude is further inflated by such federal requirements as the $16.5 billion Pathways Alliance carbon capture and storage project.
Then it’s on to B.C. to soften up the West Coast NDP oil and gas development grievance party with billions of federal taxpayer dollars directed at the North Coast transmission line and Roberts Bank port infrastructure investment.
However, not before the Canada-B.C. co-operative prosperity agreement extended the moratorium on oil tanker traffic along the province’s north coast and hammered another nail in the coffin of any future West Coast energy pipeline.
Remember, of course, that oil tankers sail past northern B.C. regularly to and from Alaska. But that is another land with different standards for what constitutes an energy superpower.
B.C. Premier David Eby also made it clear that he and his party were not supporters of any pipeline, even with the billions in new federal funding headed B.C.’s way.
He said the province would not oppose the southern route, primarily because the province does not have the authority to oppose it.
Back to Alberta’s pipeline plan B 2.0 and smiles for the camera from Carney and Smith as the two shake hands on the south coast pitch.
Estimated cost today: between $35 billion and $44 billion. Any guesses as to which one would be closer to the mark if and when any pipeline is started?
Judging by the TMX bill increase, Canadian taxpayers would be on the hook for something closer to $200 billion.
That taxpayer bill, however, is contingent on any pipeline getting built.
Controversy over Roberts Bank’s ability to accommodate an oil export mega-terminal has already begun.
Considering that the port’s Terminal 2 container terminal expansion took over a decade to win approval, the odds of getting anything else expanded, added or accelerated in this century are slim.
Little wonder then that Alberta’s pipeline plan B 2.0 has only token private investor involvement from Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Corp.
What astute oil and gas investor in the wider world would gamble anything more on Canada and its overpriced and under-delivered energy superpower ambitions?
That is one net-zero category the country has locked up.
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