Whitecap Resources is moving along with its plans for a “carbon hub” connecting five Regina and Moose Jaw industrial CO2 emitting companies to the Weyburn Unit. This will entail a substantial CO2 pipeline from that area to Weyburn. An engineering firm has been chosen to do the front-end engineering and design.
What do you get when you divide 41 by 10,000?
The fraction of Alberta’s wind power generation capacity put out on Saturday, March 11.
Pay attention to this Newfoundland offshore oil case
Uncertainty about the regulation of downstream emissions was one of the things that ultimately killed the Energy East Pipeline project. This was one of the clearest cases of the federal Liberal government “moving the goalposts.” If legal ecowarriors Ecojustice are successful in this case, it could have profound implications for all oil production in Canada. That’s especially is we are to be “net zero” by any particular date.
Note in the story how the Bay du Nord offshore project was approved by CN-tower climber himself, Steven Guilbeault. The story notes how it was one of the hardest choices in his life. Interesting, how a Newfoundland offshore project could get approval from none other that Guilbeault, and yet the rest of the oil industry feels it has no hope with him. Would that have anything to do with Newfoundland’s consistent election results of nearly every seat going Liberal red for decades? And that this project will be enormously profitably for Newfoundland? Yet when it came to the $20 billion Teck Frontier oilsands project in Alberta, the company walked away because it didn’t feel it could get any regulatory confidence from the feds?
Who pays the bills?
Year end numbers are now available for Saskatchewan oil production. Also known are the top 10 oil producers in Saskatchewan, and their total and average production for the year.
In other words, these are the people who are paying the bills for a large part of our roads, hospitals and schools.
$40 billion in oilpatch CAPEX sounds great for 2023, until you realize it is half of 2014
Back in the lofty, pre-Trudeau government days of 2014, back when oil was booming, pipelines were planned to east and west coasts, and Alberta and Saskatchewan were swimming in money, around $81 billion was spent in capital expenditures (CAPEX) in the Canadian petroleum industry. On Wednesday, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) forecast CAPEX of $40 billion, which is just about double the disaster year of 2020, but half of 2014. And that’s before #justinflation. What would it be if we had a federal government supportive of the industry, instead of trying to make it disappear?
Curiously, Enbridge announced on the same day its spending a lot of money in Texas, including a port facility for Houston. Funny how it’s not talking about Northern Gateway to Kitimat, or Churchill, or even Valdez, Alaska? Wonder why?
And here’s Brian Zinchuk’s column analyzing all this.
Russia is finding a way to ship its oil
“Dark fleet,” anyone? U of R professor Jim Warren writes about how Russia’s doing an end run around oil sanctions. Too bad we never built Energy East and were able to replace some of those barrels.
Speaking of oil – it’s expected to have a big impact on Alberta’s budget on Tuesday.
Alberta’s wind power failed, yet again, on Thursday
Alberta wind generation fell to 0.3 per cent capacity at supper last night. And the batteries that are supposed to back them up? Yeah, in the last 30 days, they output power a cumulative 0.09 per cent. That’s not 9 out of 100. That’s 9 out of 10,000. But the public thinks they will be used every night when the sun goes down or the wind doesn’t blow.
Wonder how SaskPower’s doing? We won’t be told for another two days.
More on Quebec and Newfoundland possibly re-opening Churchill Falls agreement
Some tough negotiations between Quebec and Newfoundland on Thursday, as the wholly lopsided Churchill Falls hydroelectricity deal may be reopened. Currently Newfoundland is getting paid 0.2 cents per kilowatt hour, and Quebec sells it for 41x that same power. And it will do so until 2041, unless something comes of these negotiations.
Newfoundland will continue to get screwed by Quebec for another nearly 2 decades, just watch
Story: Ahead of Quebec premier’s visit, provincial panel recommends new Churchill Falls deal
The notion that Quebec will change this deal one minute before 2041 is laughable. Quebec locked in a fixed price, with no escalator clause for inflation, in the early 1970s. And then they were able to extend it until 2041, despite Newfoundland’s protests to the Supreme Court of Canada, which backed Quebec. It is perhaps the most lopsided, unfair deal in Canadian history. Quebec gets rich, Newfoundland starves.
Churchill Falls Hydroelectric Generating Facility, with 5,428 megawatts capacity, has more power generating capacity than the entire province of Saskatchewan, combined, if every single coal and gas turbine, every wind turbine are running at 100%, and every solar panel is entirely lit at noon. If Newfoundland actually got a fair deal from its power sales over 50 years ago, it would not have been a have-not province for the last five decades. However, numerous court cases, up to the Supreme Court of Canada, have locked Newfoundland into the deal until 2041, selling power to Hydro Quebec for $2 per megawatt-hour. In New York (which buys power from Hydro Quebec), “Higher fuel costs have led to higher average wholesale electricity prices as well. In February 2022, the average year-to-date wholesale electricity cost was $118.36/Megawatt-hour (MWh), according to NYISO data.” Where do you think they buy wholesale power from?
Drill, baby, drill! It’s peak of the oilwell drilling season in the Land of Living Skies
This time of year is the peak of the drilling season, and the rig count is the leading indicator for the oil business. Here’s the rig report as of Valentine’s Day. While you were giving your sweetie flowers, these guys were turning to the right.
Bringing oil money to develop lithium in Saskatchewan
There’s one company coming into the lithium game in Saskatchewan from a slightly different perspective: It’s operated and partially owned by an oil company that already has revenue coming in. Also, it looks like there may be a lithium fairway running from east of Weyburn to Torquay. Here’s Part 12 and Part 13 in the series on Lithium in Saskatchewan.
Geothermal power project near Estevan is a “Go”
“We are a go” – DEEP Earth Energy Production’s geothermal power project near Estevan is going ahead this year
Teck was going to spend $20 billion in the oil sands, now it’s totally out. Blame the feds
Teck, one of Canada’s largest mining companies, has been around for over 100 years. But even with all that experience, they couldn’t handle the federal government’s Impact Assessment. They were going to spend $20 billion on their Frontier Oil Sands Project. The initial application was in 2012, but eight years later, they didn’t have an answer, so they pulled it. On Thursday, they sold off their last oil sands interests and are out of the oil sands entirely. Wonder why?
Possible signals of new life in SE Sask oilfield?
If you ever watched Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009), you’ve heard, “All of this has happened before, and will happen again.” Well, it might be happening in the Bakken north of Estevan.
Carbon capture, utilization and storage coming to the fore
Three stories on carbon capture and storage (CCUS): On Wednesday, the feds announced an intake for projects related to CCUS.
And the Petroleum Technology Research Centre announced recently they were including a CCUS summit in this spring’s Williston Basin Petroleum Conference.
And then there’s the oilsands efforts in CCUS. Bonus points for the Canadian Press story including the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Two days in a row, wind power was negative in Sask
The fog and calm winds have not gone away. Four days in a row, wind power in Saskatchewan was either negligible or negative. Two of those days were negative.
And remember that SaskPower is beefing up its interconnect to North Dakota and the Southwest Power Pool, from 150 to 650 megawatts? Well, as of 12:15 a.m., SPP’s power was 45% coal. So we will give up coal power here, and have option to buy coal power from the US. Because that’s what they rely on when the wind decides not to blow there, either.
What more can Saskatchewan do to keep the lights on?
On Sunday, 42% of our power came from natural gas, and 41% came from coal. Another 12% came from hydro.
1% came from wind
Ottawa, we have a problem.
Wind in Sask produced an average of 1.3% of its capacity on Wednesday
It turns out that the same day Alberta’s wind power flatlined, so did Saskatchewan’s. SaskPower delays its data reporting two days, which is why it took until Friday to find this out. Note that the 1.3 per cent output was the average for the entire day, meaning that it was even lower for part of the day.
Giant fans didn’t spin too much on Tuesday in the land of living skies
On Tuesday, we didn’t get much in the way of wind power generation, again.
Alberta coffee makers were not powered by wind Wednesday morning, as wind power collapsed, again
Alberta’s electrical grid, with 3,618 megawatts of installed wind generation, was getting just 19 megawatts from wind at 7:26 a.m. on Wednesday. This is after several grid alerts in late November and throughout December.