Energy Archives - Page 2 of 7

Oil and Gas royalties, unpaid municipal taxes, and unaddressed reclamation

17Apr

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Agencies, Budget, Energy, Environment, Opinion/Research

Oil and Gas royalties, unpaid municipal taxes, and unaddressed reclamation

In June 2022, Alberta’s then Energy Minister Sonya Savage, a former executive with the Canadian Energy Pipelines Association, warned the federal government not to consider a tax on windfall profits of the energy industry. When asked about the oil industry’s record cash flows and remediation liabilities, Savage stated: “The current spike in oil prices isn’t enough reason to require the industry to spend more on cleaning up the tens of thousands of abandoned oil and gas wells in the province.” In reflecting on this statement, it suggests that expanded spending by Alberta’ producers on remediation expenses might imply royalty payments to Alberta might fall. In short, the province may have a short-term financial interest in not losing revenue when reclamation spending increases. This cont...

3Apr

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Credit Ratings, Energy, Government Finances, Politics

Auditor General and orphaned wells

On 23 March the Auditor General issued his spring reports into four areas including the Liability Management program for oil and gas wells administered by the Alberta Energy Regulator. AER has a system to mitigate the risks for the closure of oil and gas infrastructure; however, parts of the system have not operated effectively…criteria were not fully met in the following areas: risk management practices goals, performance measurement and public accountability assessing information from OWA timely closure of inactive sites collecting sufficient financial security and minimizing risk of inappropriate licence transfers suspension, abandonment, remediation and reclamation regulatory processes Three main problems with the current liability management system are: lack of pr...

<strong>OSFI’s new guidelines: A step toward making banks and insurers more conscious of their climate impacts</strong>

22Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Banks, Energy, Environment, Intergovernmental

OSFI’s new guidelines: A step toward making banks and insurers more conscious of their climate impacts

This article of mine was published yesterday in The Conversation. Reproduced with permission from The Conversation. After an extensive consultation process, the organization that supervises banks and large insurance companies in Canada — the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) — has released guidelines for financial institutions to address climate change. This is timely, considering banks and insurers are massive funders of the fossil fuel industry. The release of the guidelines, called the B-15, comes more than a year after a January 2022 pilot study by Canada’s central bank and OSFI on how resilient financial institutions would be under new climate policies. The study found that the creditworthiness of oilsands producers is expected to fall over the next few ...

Budget Speech- Annotated and The Economic Consequences of Mr. Toews

9Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Credit Ratings, Employment, Energy, Fiscal History, Government Finances, Intergovernmental, Opinion/Research

Budget Speech- Annotated and The Economic Consequences of Mr. Toews

Budget Speech delivered on Tuesday 28 February 2023, Legislative Assembly of Alberta Mr. Speaker, I count it a tremendous honour to rise in the House today to present Budget 2023 – the fifth I have presented on behalf of Albertans. In the fall of 2019, I put forward a four-year plan to bring the province back to fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget. In some respects, these past four years have felt like a century – in part, due to the extraordinary global challenges we faced but also because of how far we’ve come. When, as a government, we took office in 2019, Alberta had an economy that was flat-lined, and we were spending $10 billion more than comparable provinces on services, without better outcomes. Our plan to strengthen Alberta’s economic foundation was two-fold: First, to bri...

2Mar

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Employment, Energy, Environment, Opinion/Research, Politics

Sustainable Jobs- An Interim Plan plus Pathways pitch

“The budget and the economy bill are replete with folly and injustice. It is a tragedy that the moral energies and enthusiasm of many truly self-sacrificing and well wishing people should be so misdirected.” John Maynard Keynes, Essays in Persuasion, “The Economy Bill, “19 September 1931 at page 145. On 17 February Natural Resources Canada’s minister Jonathan Wilkinson led the release of an “interim” Sustainable Jobs Plan (ISJP), The news release begins: Canada has what it takes to be a clean energy and technology supplier of choice in a net-zero world….to secure and create jobs, to grow our industries, and to lead the world with the resources and technologies it will need for generations to come. A chicken in every pot is proposed- “highly skilled and dedicated workers, abundant nat...

Breaking News- Premier Smith’s delivers ultimatum to Trudeau

16Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Opinion/Research, Politics

Breaking News- Premier Smith’s delivers ultimatum to Trudeau

Letter from Premier Smith to Prime Minister Trudeau February 16, 2023 Media inquiries Premier Danielle Smith invites Ottawa to collaborate with Alberta on carbon capture, utilization and storage investment and halt introduction of Just Transition legislation and oil and gas emissions cap. Dear Prime Minister: I am writing in follow up to our meeting of February 7th, during which we discussed the need for the Government of Canada to halt introduction of the proposed Just Transition legislation and implementation of unachievable targets and measures under the federal Emissions Reduction Plan (ERP) such as the Clean Electricity Regulations (CER) and oil and gas sector emissions cap. As a much more productive alternative, I invited your government to agree to commencing a collaborative ef...

Budgetary advice from UofC and the Fraser Institute – cross-examined

15Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Energy, Environment, Opinion/Research, Politics

Budgetary advice from UofC and the Fraser Institute – cross-examined

“Don’t Spend Away the Windfall: Better Options for Alberta’s Unexpected Revenues,” written by Jack M. Mintz, Trevor Tombe, Joel Emes, and Tegan Hill is timely asit arrives a few weeks before the provincial budget (28 February). This contribution, combining the right leaning Fraser Institute and two well-known University of Calgary economists offers three approaches for considering the windfall by Alberta’s finance minister Travis Toews. The paper’s moralistic title suggests politicians are not to be trusted with windfalls At this moment, we are also awaiting the report of Todd Hirsch who was engaged by the Alberta NDP to study “how an NDP government can stabilize the province’s finances and build a more resilient economy.” His mandate has been interpreted as what to do with the windfall b...

Moody’s upgrades Alberta’s credit rating

11Feb

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Budget, Credit Ratings, Energy, Government Finances

Moody’s upgrades Alberta’s credit rating

After a decade of seeing its credit rating fall steadily from the coveted triple AAA rating to AA3, surging oil revenues have again lifted Alberta’s credit rating. Nature of credit ratings Credit ratings do matter to all governments which borrow on international and domestic capital markets. There is so much debt in the world that for large bond buying desks their analysts cannot focus on every credit in detail. These institutional investors count on rating agencies to undertake thorough, in some cases almost forensic work, to assure large institutional investors- think Vanguard, Swiss RE, J.P Morgan and the CPPIB- that the risks they are managing, including default risk, are fully understood and the debt/credit portfolios have risk limits understood by the bond buyers.. Credit ratings a...

30Jan

By Bob AscahNo Comments

Energy, Environment, Intergovernmental, Politics

Smith to Trudeau- Olive branch or iron fist in a velvet glove?

Last Thursday, Premier Danielle Smith wrote Prime Minister Trudeau about the “just transition” legislation that the Liberal government will introduce this year. At first blush this letter was seen as an “olive branch”. In Smith’s words:- We can continue with the endless court challenges, legislation to protect jurisdictional rights and inflammatory media coverage over our disagreements, or, as is my strong preference, Alberta and Ottawa can work in partnership on a plan that will signal to all Canadians and investors from around the world that our governments have cooperatively designed a series of incentives and initiatives intended to achieve the following objectives The attempt to dial down the rhetoric may be her government’s response to internal party polling that indicates fights ...

30Jan

By Bob Ascah2 Comments

Bankruptcies, Banks, Employment, Energy, Environment, Politics, Uncategorized

Smith as CEO Alberta Enterprise Group to Savage: 29 July 2021- “RStar”

Below is the full text of the letter from then AEG President Danielle Smith to then Energy Minister Sonya Savage concerning a proposed royalty credit for legally required environmental remediation. Analysis of letter is below. ALBERTA ENTERPRISE GROUP 11626-119 Street Edmonton, AB T5G 2X7 July 29, 2021 Minister Sonya Savage Minister of Energy 394 Legislature Building 10800-97 Avenue Edmonton, AB T5K 2B6 Dear Minister Savage: It was a pleasure meeting with you to discuss a pilot project this fall, to test out the RStar program as a new approach to address the issue of decommissioning and closing inactive wells. I would like to summarize our conversation as you are working with your department officials to understand why this pilot project is so important to our membe...