Tag: energy policy

For the first time in about two decades, Saskatchewan changes its oil royalties scheme

Are multi-laterals the next big thing in oil? Saskatchewan bets heavy on it with new incentive program. This is the largest change in oil royalties in decades, as the government hopes to incentivize activity and production. It’s a big shift for a government that for its entire 16 years in office said it wasn’t touching a thing when it comes to royalties.

Let me put this into perspective – for the several years Bill Boyd was energy minister, he always gave the same speech, which basically went like this: “The premier has told me to say thank you. Thank you for the jobs, thank you for the taxes, thank you for the royalties and investment. And we’re not touching a thing when it comes to royalties.”

Usually whenever someone mentions royalty changes, it’s with the intention of raising them. This is the opposite, providing a royalty incentive – NOT a holiday – to get more activity and production going.

 

Carbon tax, carbon tax, carbon tax

Leader of the Opposition Carla Beck during Question Period on March 4. Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan

Guilbeault calls Saskatchewan premier ‘immoral’ for breaking carbon-price law.

Estevan MLA Lori Carr tries to show a difference between Sask Party and NDP on carbon tax in statement.

Premier Scott Moe during Question Period on March 4. Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan

That statement was referenced in the exchange between Scott Moe and Carla Beck in Question Period on the federal carbon tax. The NDP thinks Saskatchewan should have negotiated a carve-out deal.

Should Saskatchewan again have a sovereign wealth fund?

With Alberta going all-in on its sovereign wealth fund (posted yesterday), should Saskatchewan take another look at one of its own? We had one, but it didn’t last long, and turned into something of a slush fund for Crown corporations, apparently. I dug up this discussion paper that was written by U of R professor Stuart Wilson which is actually pretty good. I republished the entire paper, with his permission, on Pipeline Online.

Perhaps ironically, Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund was originally modelled on Alberta’s. And that fund is now worth US$1.42 trillion dollars (with a “t”). (Norway has less oil than Alberta).

Alberta’s going all-in on its sovereign wealth fund

Danielle Smith

Danielle Smith goes all-in on revitalized sovereign wealth fund for Alberta. Saskatchewan had one, once, but that was 32 years ago. Details in story.

Quick Dick McDick: Climate Cult Megaspecial You gotta be $#!++!\ me

He even references “climate cult,” my favourite SDA category!

CJME/CKOM radio host Evan Bray visits the Estevan coal mine, and much learning ensues

Guilbeault takes out the trash on Clean Electricity Regulations

 

The Friday before a long weekend, Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault released his updates to the proposed Clean Electricity Regulations. This is the full update, verbatim.

In Pipeline Online’s continuing mission to ensure Canadians know exactly what Guilbeault is telling them, here’s his verbatim release on the Clean Electricity Regulations.

Remember what I said the previous week about taking out the trash day? Guilbeault did exactly that. Interesting, that.

And for something a little different, yesterday was Family Day. Not everyone gets to go sledding. While I took these photos three weeks ago, they’re pretty representative of what Family Day is to a lot of people in the oil sector – just another day.

Guilbeault lights a firestorm

There’s a truism in politics: “All politics is local.” And there’s nothing more local than the road full of potholes in front of your house. But Minster of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault, supposedly speaking on behalf of the entire federal government, seems to think we don’t need any more roads. The reaction was fast and furious.

Liberals rebrand carbon-price rebates in bid to make policy more palatable

The Saskatchewan and Alberta NDP distance themselves from their federal brethren regarding banning promotion of oil and gas.

Also regarding the NDP’s banning everything, because, why not?

NDP to move bill calling for ban of coal exports as Canadian output booms

The nuclear renaissance coming to Saskatchewan

Weekend Watch: Juice: Power, Politics & the Grid

 

This video series is a spectacular take on many of the energy issues of the day. It starts with the February, 2021, Texas blackouts, and goes on to tackle renewable power in the form of wind and solar. It doesn’t speak too fondly of coal, but goes broadly into the adoption of nuclear power. Canada and its experience with nuclear figures heavily into this series, including the influence of Dr. Chris Keefer, a Toronto ER physician who had lead the crusade to bring nuclear power back to the fore. And the series gets into why nuclear all of a sudden is in a renaissance after decades of being in the dumps.

This applies directly to Saskatchewan, where just last week, SaskPower inked a deal with GE Hitachi Canada to continue the development path of small modular reactors. And in that press conference, SaskPower president and CEO Rupen Pandya, when asked by Pipeline Online how many reactors we’re going to build, said Saskatchewan’s grid is expected to grow from 5,400 megawatts currently to 13,000 to 15,000 megawatts by 2050. That’s about 2.5x what it is now. And nuclear appears like it’s going to play a huge part in that. So the issues presented in this series are very topical for this province.

Juice really highlights a lot of the issues Pipeline Online has been focusing on for the last two years. In particular, reliability trumps all, and wind and solar can only be relied upon to be utterly unreliable.

I strongly suggest anyone in the decision chain of Saskatchewan going nuclear – all MLAs, including cabinet and opposition, all executives, board and management of SaskPower, and union leadership and membership, take the time to watch this at some point in the near future. This is the reality Saskatchewan is rapidly heading towards.

This series was put together by Robert Bryce and Tyson Culver. Bryce one of the most astute energy analysts out there. You can follow his Substack at https://robertbryce.substack.com/

This was originally a feature, but broken up into manageable chunks and posted for free on YouTube. Each episode is around 22 minutes long. It’s definitely worth watching all five. All five videos are in the story link above.

We’re going to need a LOT of reactors in Saskatchewan…

SaskPower and GE Hitachi advance small modular reactor plans, but won’t say how many, or how much they’ll cost just yet. Also, SaskPower looking at increasing grid by 2.5x in 25 years and 11 months. Didn’t I just write a column about that earlier this week? Oh yeah. What doubling the grid really means. Also, if you start doing the math, my earlier predictions Saskatchewan will need 15-20 small modular reactors (if not more) is looking pretty much on the money.

Lithium rights – making sure we all make money

Prairie Lithium drilled the first targeted lithium well in Saskatchewan. Photo by Brian Zinchuk

 

A few years ago I realized that there was serious potential for a big conflict between various rights holders of oil, gas, helium, lithium and geothermal. So I started asking hard questions about it. Last year, the Ministry of Energy and Resources got many of the players in a big room with a pile of staff from various ministries to try to sort it all out. This story is a follow up to that process. Note there seems to have been some movement on the helium front last fall which I was not aware of. It will likely end up as a separate story soon.

Also, apparently the royalty for lithium is pegged at 3 per cent.

Lithium in SK Part 25: Primacy of rights, revisited

A lot more news to come on the lithium front. Keep your eyes peeled.

Pour on a little more coal, boys!

Boundary Dam Power Station last night

The past weekend proved to be a close-run thing for the Alberta electrical grid, and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is making statements resolving he won’t allow that to happen here.

Specifically, after having nearly completely divested itself of coal-fired power production, Alberta’s dramatic buildout of wind and solar proved impossible to keep the lights on in that province when the chips were down and temperatures hit -35 C, or worse.

Alberta’s close brush with possible rolling blackouts stiffens Moe’s resolve to keep the lights on. On Monday, he announced that SaskPower has relit a shuttered coal unit near Estevan, one the feds had supposedly forced to retire Dec. 31, 2021.

Also note: Saskatchewan has about a million cars registered. So a good bet is Alberta probably has four million. What would have happened if four million EVs were all plugged in last weekend?

If you missed them, these five stories, in order, chronicle what happened in Alberta.

Most of Alberta’s wind fleet slowly shut down Thursday night, but not for lack of wind

Grid Alert 1:

Alberta goes under grid alert for just under 5 hours on Jan. 12

Grid Alert 2:

Alberta’s electrical grid stood at the brink of blackouts Jan. 13, before pulling back in the nick of time

Grid Alert 3:

Alberta goes into Round 3, with its third electrical grid alert in three days

Grid Alert 4:

Round 4: Alberta declares fourth electrical grid alert in 4 days, second in 17 hours

Round 3, Fight! Alberta spends third evening in danger of blackouts

For the third day in a row, Alberta went into an electrical grid alert on Sunday. At one point it had no contingency reserve left at all, but imports from BC appeared to save the day. While it looked a little hairy there for a bit, there was no emergency alert declared, unlike Saturday.

Did I mention before that Alberta has more coal, oil and natural gas than God? Because guess what? It still does.

 

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