Alberta and Canada cheat on Carbon Sequester

All the carbon dioxide that goes down hole is not sequestered! The original plan was to put the carbon into the deep saline water aquifer which is housed between and upper and lower level of bedrock.

Now, they are using the bulk of the planned carbon dioxide as an effective solvent most of which will come gushing out of the well ahead of the first recovered oil and the remainder for the better part will be absorbed into the oil to be released later. Effervescent oil easy to pump.

Alberta schools P3

In the world of Alberta Finance, there is no firm price contracts. All projects are let "cost plus" and cost over runs are never challanged, just coverd with more money. True costs of the programs are never made public. A really good investment for these companies.
Quote:
Lenders including Sun Life Assurance Company, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, Canada Life, Bank of Ireland, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, National Australia Bank, The Toronto-Dominion Bank and The Bank of Montreal.

On September 10, 2008, the Government of Alberta signed an agreement with BBPP Alberta Schools Limited to design, build, finance and maintain 18 state-of-the-art schools in the province through a Design-Build-Finance-Maintain public-private partnership. The schools are scheduled to open in September 2010 and provide space for more than 12,000 students, and will cost the Province $643 million. According to the Government of Alberta, this public-private partnership resulted in a savings of $118 million to the Province compared to the cost of providing the same work through traditional delivery methods. This agreement represents the largest ever Canadian schools P3 transaction and Alberta's largest social infrastructure P3.

Total debt aggregated approximately $460 million, including approximately $335 million in long-term lending, and a $125 million short-term tranche to remain in place until completion of construction. The financing, which was arranged by CIT Financial Ltd. (as agent) included both banks and institutional lenders, including Sun Life Assurance Company, The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, Canada Life, Bank of Ireland, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, National Australia Bank, The Toronto-Dominion Bank and The Bank of Montreal.

Babcock & Brown's London listed infrastructure fund, Babcock & Brown Public Partnerships is investing 75% of the project's equity, with GVest, an affiliate of Graham Construction, providing the remaining 25%. The construction contractor for the project is a joint venture of Graham Construction and Bird Construction, and the renewal and maintenance contractor is Honeywell.

The lenders were advised by a team from Fasken Martineau that included Brian Kelsall, Ella Plotkin, Jon Holmstrom, Tom Barlow and Marc Lefler in the Toronto office, and Richard Peters and Sheldon Good in Calgary.

Alberta or Iranian Oil in the future?

What a joke! What an absolute waste of money by our disaster called Premier Stelmach. Last week US President Obama made a video for Iranians to see and mull over. In his video Obama spoke of renewed peace and co-operation between Iran and the United States.

Think: Uncle Sam wants Iranian oil and NOT Alberta's dirty oil.

I'm selling all my tar sands related stock and buying into those companies that will likely get contracts (soon!) in Iran. It's too bad that Klein and Stelmach gave away for dirt cheap all the natural gas in Alberta, because that's all we'll have left of what Obama wants.

Alberta's Conservative governments have totally ruined the future of our province. Big mouth Tories bragged to the world how much "oil" will have and how stinking rich we are, but guess what happened? People took a second look at what's happening here and they didn't like what they saw.

Thanks Klein for shooting your mouth off... and now because of all the stupid decisions made by Conservatives the future of our province is nowhere near as bright as people think it is.

Am I being negative? No, I'm being honest. Thanks Conservatives for the massive bust that is now following a useless mini-boom. In reality, Albertans only have themselves to blame for voting Conservative. We never learn do we???
Good insight; shared from a friend.

Alberta Bitumen going south in pipelines.

Bitumen is first foamed, mixed with naphtha to make a slurry in order to pump it down to Texas. The press in the US would have people in Nevada believe the product in the tank is the polished crude from the tar sands.

Alberta still spinning royalty

The Calgary Herald remains the Conservative Ink Barrel. No posts allowed if they pertain to the truth about the royalties. One has to wonder why you even subscribe! The comments are more interesting than the stories as in how far misinformation goes.

On point:
Comparison of Alberta royalty to that of Saskatchewan and BC.
Alberta takes 19% in Canadian dollars now. The others take 30% Plus in US dollars
We are short 22% at this point on exchange alone plus another 11% on the actual exchange rate.

On start up royalty our neighbors collect 2% and we only collect 1% and that, only when oil reaches 45.00 per barrel.

It is Albertans who carry the brunt of the punishment in this downturn, not the oil companies. However, there is enough of that to go around.

Trans Canada Pipelines- Implications.

The output of the tar sands is currently about 1.3 to 1.5 million barrels of polished crude per day and is being moved in pipelines to the US.

Where is the new crude going to come from? Expansion in the tar sands or from up-graders around Hardisty?

Trans Canada are currently building the Keystone Pipeline into the Texas gulf

This first pipeline will have a capacity of 435,000 barrels per day late this year and that capacity will expand to 590,000 barrels per day next year.

Trans Canada are making an application for a long planned second pipeline capable of 900,000 barrels per day. All apparently directed to the movement of McMurray crude. The pipeline will swing through Oklahoma and Nebraska which many refineries of their own.

The capabilities of these pipelines is 1.5 million barrels per day which means the output of the tar sands is expected to be doubled by the end of 2010.

We can guess what the next election is going to be about.

Where is the openness this Government talks about?

Alberta Economy shows most shrinkage!

Alberta has been grossly mismanaged. Rather than invest windfall royalty back into this province this Government has elected to plough the profits back into reduced royalty rates.

At 19% Canadian, the rates are the lowest in the world but because of the nature of stock, very little is returned to the province.

Alberta's conventional oil is now a "mature" resource. Deep wells and directional drilling are expensive. Using captured carbon to access deep well reserves is a good plan but will take years to get on line.

Now in recession or worse with a Government that has only experience in mega surplus non budget performance, we see the fruits of our labours.

I personally don't think this crew could manage a lemonade stand!

Alberta Finance - turning the corner?

This article on the reduction of cost on the Henday drive is a historical document!

This is the first time in Alberta Conservative history they have released the results of the bidding on a project. Here, we have the players names and the relative placement of their bids.

Can we expect more of the same as this Government burns through the cash?
I think, probably not.

Alberta finance: Inexperience and recklessness

Alberta puts 40 million into well reclamation reads the headline.

Also the article tells us the receivers of the money, the Orphan Well Association, did not ask for funds and did not need the funds as the Orphan Wells have been paid for by the oil companies to the extent of about 12 million dollars a year.

The Mr. Stelmach in a separate article said he was giving this money to them to use in addition to what ever they are spending and he hopes they will spend it.

The point of all this?

This project like the other 2.5 billion in projects that have been put up by the Conservatives have gone out with no plans, no details, no instruction on how or what to spend it on.

Their construction projects when they were more than flush with cash were all cost plus. Bids were given to whoever they wanted after a bid was asked for regardless of what the winning bid was. Lists of bids are never let to the public. Awash with cash they threw money at what ever tweaked their interest.

Now, the worm has turned and it should be apparent to every one that after all these years we are dealing with amateurs who do not no how to Govern. They don't have a whole pile of experience. They have the same very few experiences, over and over again.

Alberta's oil fiscal deficiencies laid out

Short now of what amounts to 3 years of revenue from our resources they find us in trouble and are using it as an excuse of pushing the Conservative agenda of absolute and total privatization. Now, they can uses the lower revenues which they caused as an excuse to cut funding for programs.

It must be a warp in the conservative physic! Today we see articles the world is awash with oil due to inactivity caused by the recession. We read of whole fleets of tankers being bought to store oil afloat awaiting a port to dump their cargo into. Cheaper than pipelines. Cheaper than tanks ashore for storage.

We read where BP is cancelling its pipeline work designed to move natural gas from Alaska to Alberta and a day later Stelmach is telling the NWT industry wants the gas from the North Shore, put the pipeline through.

Every where we look and everything we see points to the hard fact that oil along with a number of other commodities has tanked!

Today the Conservative announce they are going to kick yet another billion into the oil patch "to keep people working" and a second Billion and a half going to subsidize oil drilling. The Billion is to clean up oil wells according to Mr. Knight. This government has spent years telling us there is nothing such as a dirty site. If you got ill because of the wells, now is the time to lawyer up.

On royalty we are taking a 20% + loss in revenue on exchange alone. I estimated this at 16 billions of dollars but the Liberals have pulled the oil books and pointed out to the Government that their energy regime considering Syncrude alone has cost this province 18 billion dollars.

This runs the estimate up to close to 30 billions of because the deals are passed onto other sectors of the petroleum and gas industry. Pumped into the oil industry coffers that that has all gone to fat stock portfolios. Its gone and the Government is now going to throw another 3 billion on the table to encourage drilling?

We are already taking less money than is Saskatchewan and BC. If someone was going to drill they would be drilling now! This is a blatant slice to move more of Alberta cash into the oil industry.

When the math is done, we are paying the oil and gas companies to take the non renewable resource from the province. At the end of the day we won't even have the jobs.

It is time to elect a Government in Alberta who works for the province rather than the oil industry. They are not one of the same!