Here’s Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s response, verbatim. I like doing these verbatim pieces because it allows the reader to hear the full-throated discussion, without a filter. It’s interesting how she talks about how the $20.6 billion Teck Frontier oilsands mine was killed by the No More Pipelines Act. That’s not chump change. Anyone think they might reconsider it? (That’s a trick question – Teck has since abandoned and sold off its oilsands interests – for obvious reasons.)
Also, after nearly three years of work since it drilled its first well near Climax, Saskatchewan, Royal Helium has entered into production with its first helium facility near Brooks, Alberta. This is transformational for the company, as it turns Royal from an explorer with no revenue to a helium producer, with revenue. Indeed, its production is already locked up in sales, so strong is the demand. And expect their next focus to likely be in Saskatchewan.
I’ll have another significant helium story posted for Tuesday morning. Exciting times, this.
My inner 12 year old believes that any TV reporter discussing helium issues should speak only after inhaling large amounts of helium from a balloon…just to ‘keep it real’. 😉
Nice to see Canada get into helium production.
What’s going on at Cigar Lake?
Rather than simply giving you my interpretation, the best source I have is World Nuclear News.
https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Cameco-revises-2023-Canadian-production-forecast
Both Cigar Lake and McArthur River are back in full production after suspension of mining in 2018-22. Canada remains the world’s largest uranium producer after Kazakhstan.
Is nice!!
This is off-topic, but good news:
Mazda has developed a tappet-valved 2-stroke engine that does not need oil/gas mixing.
Think: V-8 power in a 4-cylinder package.
Also, more efficient.
Can anyone explain why the US sold off all its helium under Bush?
Now everyone’s bitching about helium shortages.
Well, everyone sounded like cartoon characters. Bad enough they are all stupid, sounding stupid is even worse.
Good news for deeper SCUBA diving.
Yeah. 300ft or better. Granted in WA state you can’t see zip after 100ft.
The Liberal/NDP Party’s obsession with trying to kill Alberta’s economy all the time is sickening.
This attitude goes back decades. It’s some form of an id’ee fixa, and it has to end. Even separation if necessary.
I gave up on Canada 20 years ago. On my federal election ballots I now write “Western Separation Now!”
Yup….in the 1988 David Kilgour (Liberal) book “Uneasy Patriots”, Energy minister Marc Lalonde is quoted as that the motive of the NEP was what Albertans had suspected all along: “to transfer wealth from Alberta to Central Canada. The major factor behind the NEP wasn’t Canadianization or getting more from the industry or even self-sufficiency.
He is quoted as saying “The major factor behind the NEP wasn’t Canadianization or getting more from the industry or even self-sufficiency. The determinant factor was the fiscal imbalance between the provinces and the federal government. Our proposal was to increase Ottawa’s share appreciably, so that the share of the producing provinces would decline significantly and the industry’s share would decline somewhat.”
Art, you nailed it. That was exactly the strategy pursued by the federal Liberals ever since the election of Pierre Trudeau as Prime Minister in 1968. The intent always was to claw back out of the hands of the Provinces dominant control of the country’s oil and gas industry. The Liberals operated under the accurate understanding that oil and gas were and would be Canada’s principal export. Money equals power, and the Liberals wanted it firmly in their hands.
The same thing applied to creation of the Official Languages Act. That was an effective way of keeping unilinguals out of the government bureaucracy and limiting it to the population within about 250 km of Ottawa-Montreal. Again this was aimed at separating western provinces and their people from working in the federal bureaucracy.
There’s an overall plan here, and the LPC has been working it for half a century.
It’s difficult to imagine an energy company so desperate that it would invest in Canada.
Perhaps shutting off all oil and gas to the rest of Canada for a few weeks in January would sharpen the senses.
worked under Peter Lougheed. I think they got to the 10% level cutting back by 5% every couple weeks . the empty hairs dad responded by contracting oil from mexico at full price. the fact that it was 10 API oil worth less than half that and un-refinable in most refiners eluded the press at the time
As the world’s largest helium purchaser, NASA would certainly be interested.
They need greater and greater supplies of helium to keep their “satellites” afloat.