Canada News - Cap and Trade News - Gas Pipe Competition: Shale

General Northern Gas Pipeline-related News From Canada

Reuters.  Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) continues to work on advancing the C$16.2 billion ($15 billion) Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline, a senior executive of the U.S. major said on Friday.  Andrew Swiger, senior vice-president at the world's largest publicly traded oil company, said at a Calgary presentation that the company, one of five partners in the planned line to carry natural gas from the Canadian Arctic to southern markets, is still advancing the project.     *     Imperial Oil profit sags on low prices, refining, Forbes.  NO WORD ON ARCTIC LINE In its earnings release, Imperial offered no update on the future of the Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline after a newspaper ....     *   Calgary Herald by Dan Healing.  It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced the federal government would yank the tax-free status income trusts had come to expect and make them pay taxes like corporations as of Jan. 1, 2011.  See Yesterday's Links and Comment.

Cap and Trade

 Northern News Network (10/28) reports, “As debate over climate change legislation heats up on Capitol Hill, the Director of the University of Montana’s Climate Change Studies Program, and a co-author of a Nobel Prize winning report, says cap and trade legislation could ruin the US economy. Running is a co-author of the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and founder of the Climate Change Studies program at the University of Montana. He added, “If the US passed a cap and trade and other countries did not, it wouldn’t work. It would ruin the US economy and it wouldn’t save the climate either. So this is a global issue, the global climate statistics are global in nature, global carbon emissions are global in nature, and we really have to have an international consensus of what to do. That is going to stretch our international diplomacy to its limit, there’s no doubt about that.”    *     Wall Street Journal (10/30) reports, “With President Barack Obama bidding to overhaul the health-care system, tighten bank oversight and make industries pay for their greenhouse-gas emissions, some trade-association chiefs have decided to compromise with the party in power. Not Thomas Donohue. On many of Mr. Obama's priorities, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is working to defeat the administration. In the process, he has made the Chamber one of Mr. Obama's most visible opponents. Through a spokesman, Mr. Donohue declined to be interviewed for this article. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations this month, the 71-year-old said "the great preponderance of our members believe in our position [on climate change] and support it."     *     Spiegel Online (10/30) reports, “Many climate change activists have been disappointed with the administration of US President Barack Obama so far. But German energy giants are ecstatic. With US money flowing into alternative energies, companies from this side of the Atlantic are eager to get their share. We are participating very actively in the application process of the stimulus program," Dr. Michael Weinhold, chief technology officer of Siemens energy sector told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It has been and is a big market opportunity for us." "The US has enormous growth potential," Frank Mastiaux, head of the Climate & Renewables division at German energy giant E.on, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "It's not the most attractive market in terms of revenue, but markets change," he adds.     *     Reuters (10/30) reports, “Success in Copenhagen is likely to hinge on money. Developing countries say they will not sign up to tackling climate change without enough funds from rich nations, which bear most of the responsibility for damaging the atmosphere by fuelling their industries with oil and coal over decades.     *      See Yesterday's Links and Comment.  

Gas Pipeline Competition: Shale

 Oil Daily(10/30, subs. req’d) reports, “Natural gas produced from shale plays could account for as much as 35% of US gas production by 2013, analyst Dave Pursell of Tudor Pickering told the Platts Appalachian Gas Conference Thursday. Pursell sees shale gas accounting for 22 billion cubic feet per day of US production by 2013, up from 8 Bcf/d or 12% of US production in 2008. He also said a greater percentage of the US rig fleet would be dedicated to shale gas drilling. He predicted that 614 rigs, or 41% of the US rig count, would be targeting shale gas in 2013, up from around 357 rigs, or 18% of the rig count, in 2008. Production ramp-ups at emerging shale gas plays like the Marcellus and the Haynesville.