Figuring out our Conservatives!

The Wild Rose Party's Brian Jean has a decade of service as a Conservative MP, some of which was under Steven Harper!

The Conservatives Jim Prentice first elected as Conservative MP in 2004 has served since. Another person with a decade of being a Conservative MP under Harper.

Last election, Stephen Harper put his high paid election strategists to work for the Wild Rose Party. Ex-Minister and oil lobbyist Jim Dinning served as poster boy for the party.

When is a race no race at all? Do you get the feeling you are being hooped? That this whole competition thing is orchestrated by the conservative party?

This is just one reason the Alberta NDP are so very popular and increasing in popularity every day.

One thing is for very sure; the WRP are no improvement over the Conservatives!

The National Energy Program-time to bury the hate!

Seems like a great time to bring up the NEP; the much hated (and the haters don’t know why) energy program.

This was planned and put into effect when there was no internet to defend the project or the system. What parties and industry told the press was pretty much the news. Only channel for reason was letters to the editor which invariably did not get published or published out of context

The Oil Industry was completely dominated by US oil. If you wanted a business you worked through them, not the Government. Peter Lougheed and Pierre Trudeau had teams that seen the fallacy in this design so they proposed the “National Energy Program” and it was decided that PET would be the spokesman and answer public debate if any.

Well,no one anticipated the huge outpouring of spite and misinformation produced by the American Oil Consortium. They bought up pages of Alberta newspapers and inundated Albertan’s with their side of the story no matter how wrong it was.

The NEP plan was to increase Canadian ownership in the oil industry to an extent that Canada would have some say in the marketing aspects of the oil. At this time I think the number for Canadian ownership was 6 or 7% and none of that in the burgeoning Tar Sands explorations and developments.

Important to remember here that Lougheed agreed to this plan; helped to promote it. It was not as advertised by the oil consortium a grab placed on Alberta by PET and the Liberals.

The plan ran from 1980 to 1985. In this period we hit another Global recession but the fall out was near horrific.
The Conservatives under Lougheed and in keeping with the idea to increase Canadian ownership went out to the private investors and public in general expounding on the get rich fast aspects of the Tar Sands. Secure your futures in the Tar Sands projects.

Petro-Canada, an invention of the Fed invested in the Tar Sands, was really invented to do just that. And, they were totally trashed by the the US oil Consortium. Lot of trees died for that one; presses ran wild! But, even more astounding was the small army of Individual investors; Mom and Pops sold the store to invest in this new dream. Many sold the farm as the saying goes. In effect they borrowed against their homes and their farms to start a new business in line with Tar Sands service requirements.

This was done at a time when inflation was allowed to reign. It was allowed as it appeared as appreciative profiting by the Mom and Pop investors. Interest rates however jumped to 25% or more even throwing the local non investor homes into jeopardy,

Meanwhile the Oil Consortium US is still banging out their anti NEP stuff and blaming everything from the lack of production (we were now into another world recession and no internet) and the cry from the people who were loosing their live’s chattel was loud and clear. Ditch the NEP Trudeau killed us. All this vehemence brought forward by BS handed out by the US oil consortium.

We are going to see a lot of press similar to this coming out now because of the new social presence in Canada.  The article showing up quoting Prentice who cites Lougheed as an extremest outlines how Prentice is trying to draw on that old time hate and distress.

There was one very major event turning moment. Pierre Trudeau was making his way to a train departure followed by a scrum (not called that then) of reporters. More like a gang of hoodlums. All screaming crap about the NEP to be aired on evening news. The poison was in the questions recorded not in the answers not given.

One reporter got really nasty in his “question” throwing and Trudeau flipped him the Bird. This was caught on Camera and ran in the papers that Trudeau was flipping Alberta the Bird. It caught on quickly and was circulated around the province for months.

That is why Albertan’s seem to hate the Liberal flag. Its’ got to change; reason has to start somewhere, why not here?

In these few years the NEP operated the World Recession killed unnumbered businesses. Houses and homes were lost to banks. It was as nasty as it could possibly get with the inflation and recession going on at the same time. But, it was not the NEP that brought this on! In the few years it was in operation, the Canadian ownership went from the lowly 7% to over 25%. In that regard, the stated reason for its being, it was a success despite the oppressive, deep pocket resistance by American Oil Consortium.

A better understanding of Alberta vis Norway by the Star.

Published on Fri Apr 03 2015

Jim Prentice would appear to be a brave man among career politicians.

Some time in the next two weeks, the Alberta premier will go to the polls seeking a mandate for one of the most radical budgets in his province’s history.

It is an austerity budget that, among other miseries, cuts Alberta Health Services by $286 million in funding and 1,700 jobs. Tabled late last month in response to a drastic 68 per cent plunge in oil-and-gas royalty revenue, Prentice’s budget also calls for almost 60 higher taxes and fees, and a new health tax.

Prentice will go to the people tied in the polls with the Wildrose Party. He will have to answer for a Progressive Conservative economic stewardship that now burdens Albertans with a record deficit for 2015-16 estimated by the Prentice government at $7 billion, or $1,707 per Albertan, compared with just $795 per person in Ontario.

And that is a rosy forecast, assuming an average world oil price this year of $65 (U.S.), considerably higher than, say, TD Bank’s estimate of $52.

Under Tory rule, Alberta has lost its prized debt-free status. And if epic deficits continue, becoming a structural shortfall, borrowing to service debt could turn Alberta into a have-not province by the next fiscal year, TD Bank warns.

And Prentice has audaciously blamed Albertans for their fiscal crisis.

Albertans have for decades tolerated, if not encouraged, a mismatch of the highest spending on government services of any province (about $1,300 per citizen) and the lowest personal and corporate taxes in the country.

Albertans have elected a succession of fiscally irresponsible governments, which have also failed to emulate Norway and Alaska in adequately building a rainy day fund with oil and gas royalties. So Albertans should “look in a mirror,” Prentice said recently, if they want to know why their province is in fiscal straitjacket.

Prentice will win the election. Albertans, averse to political change, have kept the Tories in power for 43 years. Wildrose is in disarray, helmed by a neophyte leader and still smarting from the defection last year of 11 of its legislators to the Tories.

Prentice is a veteran of Alberta politics who held several cabinet posts in the Harper Government before taking a top-level job in banking. Despite winning leadership just last year, Prentice has already improved his party’s standing with a public disenchanted over the fiasco of the brief Alison Redford premiership.

What Prentice likely won’t have time to do in the short space of an election campaign is promote an overdue economic renaissance for his province. With a mandate from Alberta voters, perhaps he will.

Edmonton needs to raise royalties on Alberta’s petroleum wealth, aligning itself with other major oil-producing jurisdictions. That won’t be easy, given the fierce opposition from the Canadian oilpatch to then-premier Ed Stelmach’s 20 per cent increase in royalties in 2007. After a three-year climbdown, royalty rates were effectively back to where they’d been in 2007. Indeed, that controversy helped spur the creation of the ultra-conservative Wildrose Party, which became the Tories’ chief electoral nemesis. Thus Alberta remains at the giveaway end of the global resource royalties spectrum.

In 2012, the Alberta-based Parkland Institute calculated that since 1986, the Alberta oilpatch had generated about $260 billion (Cdn.) in pretax profits from the tar sands alone, of which Albertans’ share was less than $25 billion — a sum that disappeared into the government’s general revenues.

Alberta needs to diversify its economy, one already blessed with thriving agriculture and tourism sectors. It is folly to allow GDP to fall hostage to outside forces over which one has no control, a lesson Alberta should have learned from the prolonged 1980s oil slump. Texas did, transforming itself into a world-leading centre of aerospace and computing technology development. So did Pittsburgh, becoming a medical and environmental R&D leader after its mainstay steel industry collapsed. Boise has emerged as a thriving high-tech hub generating start-up businesses despite its relatively remote location.

There is a great future for substantial Alberta industries in environmental and telecommunications technologies, specialty manufacturing, and medical science R&D — all of which have already established a base in the province.

Alberta can not continue to fund a significant portion of public services with non-renewable resource revenues. Resource royalties still account for about one-fifth of Alberta government revenues, down from an eye-popping one-third for a nine-year span starting in 1998. Like Norway, Alberta will have to both live within its means and look beyond the fossil-fuel sector to fund the provision of public services.

Oil and gas are finite resources, obviously. And Eldar Saetre, head of Norway’s state oil producer Statoil, strikes a sobering note in explaining that the current cutbacks at his enterprise aren’t due solely to the calamitous drop in the world oil price. Statoil, he explains, is in a permanent slimdown phase, because of two factors: World oil supplies are gradually depleting, and fossil fuels are poised for replacement over the next two decades by alternative energy sources. Petro-economies will eventually be a thing of the past.

In the meantime, though, it’s not too late to bulk up the Heritage Fund as a safeguard against volatile economic cycles. Alberta’s sizeable agriculture industry is a cyclical commodities sector, too, after all.

With daily oil production of 2.3 million barrels, Alberta produces more oil than Norway (1.9 million per day). But Oslo does not fund government activities with its oil wealth, as Alberta does. Norway’s oil-related receipts are contributed to the 25-year-old Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s biggest sovereign wealth fund with assets of more than $1.1 trillion (Cdn.). Though it rarely does so, Oslo is legally permitted to tap the fund, but only by 4 per cent of annual income per year, which leaves the principal untouched.

Alberta’s last sage premier, Peter Lougheed, created the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund much earlier, in 1976. But Alberta stopped contributing to it just 11 years later. Edmonton also repeatedly raided the fund for special projects and everyday spending. The Heritage Fund thus has a comparatively measly $17 billion in assets.

Assets of Alaska’s Permanent Fund, which pays each Alaskan a dividend of between $1,000 and $2,500 a year, now totals almost $68 billion (Cdn.) despite that annual payout. In a province-wide TV address last month, Prentice told Albertans that “one of the great mistakes we have made has been our commitment to let the Heritage Fund lapse.”

The remedial steps above have been recommended many times over past decades by, among others, the left-leaning Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and the right-leaning Fraser Institute.

These measures, essential to Alberta’s future prosperity, have met with resistance each time they are broached, chiefly by a petroleum industry that has an outsized influence over the lives of 4.1 million Albertans. It is for Albertans, ultimately, to decide whether Big Oil will run their lives. Or if it is time finally to become, to borrow the apt Quebec motto, maître chez nous — masters of our own destiny.

Still another case to Vote for the Alberta NDP; for Government!  WRP are dropping fast .

Up to date summary with the players mapped out.

It blows my imagination when I think of Albertans still voting for Conservatives who have done nothing but rob them blind for the past 15 years or more. 

I will map it out:

They have taken more than 700 billion dollars from our heritage Savings and Trust fund, They did this by limiting the growth to 5% taking all above and putting it into General Revenues to spend as taxes.(we sure could have used that now)

They continue to operate as an extension of the oil cartels rather than custodians of this province!

Starting about 10 years ago they discounted our oil going to market by 30% this shorted the Alberta Producers and the Alberta economy this effectively moved 30% of the revenue out of Alberta and Canada and into the pockets of the oil principals in the US Gulf Coast who in turn made huge profits exporting.

Our losses over this period of time, on this one item I would place at a minimum of 3 Trillion dollars!

When our deal on oil was first made, we got 34% of sales on the finished plant but only charged 1% until the built plant was paid for in full with no audits on costs. Albertans paid for those plants 110% This is when Ralph Klein took over. When Klein left office the drain was already on the Heritage Trust fund and our royalty was down to 16% the lowest in the world! We only discovered this when Fred Dunn Alberta Auditor General chided the Government for collecting only 16% of the royalty when they were telling the public we were at 19%. 

This prompted a hate Fred Dunn campaign by the Conservatives, they cut the auditor general budget to nothing forcing him out of office because he couldn't afford to do anything.

There was an interim Energy Minister then, Ron Liepert who announced on TV that Albertans should learn to tighten their belts. Our royalty was down to 6% and was going to fall from there. Our royalty for the past 2 years has been zero%

Just a few weeks ago it was announced there would be a $30 addition to every power bill in the province as a power line build tax. There is no ending date on this. There are 1.5 million meters spinning in this province which means a billion dollar rip off every 2 years!

We are shedding population like a dog sheds flees!  As the population numbers plummet we will be expected to pay still more probably through our well established indirect taxation system, the utilities. There is no shortage of water. Oil companies asked for a basin of water and were given an allotment of a swimming pool. In this way the Conservatives on one side would say we are out of water (allotments) an oil on the other side could say how responsible we are, we didn't use our allotment!

Our problem is not spending which brings me to the Wild Rose Party. They are born and raised in Southern Alberta Guided by the LDS church who contribute heavily to the US Republicans and have taught that considerable population in southern Alberta that a hard conservative Government is the only way to survive.

They know from experience that a Republican Government or a Conservative Government or something even more ugly, the Wild Rose Party will cut social programs forcing people back to the church and their famous community cellar for their daily ration.

To give the LDS credit they are the first to have boots and supplies on the ground on world disasters, well ahead of most governments, being well funded through perks and supplies from the various Republican Governments.

The Wild Rose Party say time again it is the spending that is out of order, too much money sent to Ottawa. What they are talking about is the cornerstone of what makes Canada, Canada!

The Transfer payments they are so vocal about cutting off cannot Legally be cut off but it doesn't stop them from saying so. They justify this by saying Alberta has never received funding from Ottawa and in private they talk about how it was the Chase Manhattan Bank that saved Alberta in those early days.

In fact Alberta received equalization-transfer payments from conception until 1947 and again from 1957 to 1965. We got our share of the program when we needed it! It is a Canadian solution so both Harper and the WRP want to end it. Harper put his election crew in charge of the WRP election campaign for Smith and Dinning, now a lobbyist for the oil companies was their poster boy and occasional commenter.

We were often compared to Norway who had a similar oil output to Alberta. Norway has over 1 trillion dollars in offshore banks, now acting as the Bankers for Europe! They have a taxation system in their country that operates their country. This all done to protect their industry.

They offer free university for those who want it. They have state of the art medical facilities and availability that is second to none.

This highly educated group turn out 70% of their population for every vote. The Conservatives got in with just 23% because voter turn out in Alberta was so dismal; like wise Canada!

This crisis for which we have no backup is going to last a minimum of 6 years! More than likely 8 years with never a full recovery. We have lost all our markets; customers with exception of a trickle into Cushing Ill. And, Obama is busy laying 11,600 miles of new pipelines. My guess is hooking up the 5 US authority districts for oil. That way they would take advantage of more bits of storage here and there.

The Conservatives are lying through their teeth going into an election where they will continue to do the same thing over and over as they have done in the past. Please, learn from it!

One other very important item: Alberta put up a make work program for the oil patch in the last major downturn. It was to cover the large amount of illegal immigrants working oil.  Being illegal they did not have EI nor the regular support.  It was miner; lasted 2 years at the end of which time the Conservatives announced it had cost taxpayers 6 billion dollars.  (More lies I know for a fact these people were getting 1 or 2 days a week work, certainly not 6 billion dollars worth)

Knowing full well they never had that kind of money (very little in fact) I checked the AIMCO financial statement just released and it showed AIMCO posting a 7 billion dollar loss while other like companies were posting 3% gains. 7 billion was a 10% loss a difference of 13%

AIMCO supposedly look after the municipal and Government pension funds. I contacted the unions who entered into the fray with the Government who denied for 3 weeks they did not touch the pension funds.

When they were hit with the prospect of court and AIMCo producing their books in that court in disclosure the Government relented. Yes they did take the money and arrangements were made to repay.

So, in this one single action the Alberta Conservatives proved themselves to be Liars, thieves and cheats. Smooth move to show their colors so clearly.

Kinder Morgan has announced the building of a storage capacity in Edmonton; an additional 4.8 million barrels. That is because US national storage is filling up. We are heading into our slow season for oil; heating is off. Cushing is rapidly filling up and its too expensive by comparison to the price of oil to build new pipelines from Cushing to the Gulf coast. And, that section isn't on Obama’s list.

How did all this come about!

Merkel the all powerful German Conservative wanted an embargo on Russia. Harper joined in; he didn’t want to be left out. Lord help those who don’t show up for the tea party. Germany imports all her oil, the lower the prices go the better off they are!  Gotta love politics!

Russia immediately put Gazprom to work who inked a long term very cheap deal with China on LNG and Oil. China to this point was the Wests big dream of a continuing market. China responded by putting its 5 LNG plants in Indonesia up for sale citing they were not making enough money. (As compared to cheap gas from Russia) No takers yet. But, this threw the Saudi into a BTU war with Indonesia to protect the Saudi market. It affected the whole world as prices plummeted.

Obama didn't help things by curtailing Saudi access to the Gulf Refineries. More pressure on Saudi; more price cutting and more cheap oil out.

Another market was Japan who were buying LNG at 17.00 per mcf and the west and Indonesia were buying at 3.00 per mcf. Japan asked for some relief in prices as their economy was sinking. They were told no!

A new election produced a new Government who immediately put back online its 3 remaining nuclear plants and promised to build 6 more in the next 2 years. Their economy has already improved but the dream market of Christie in BC and the west in general had disappeared.

I am going to support the Alberta NDP. They are fiscally responsible and sane. The latter as important as the first and I think I have demonstrated that socialism is safe and that the Conservative failed state is really the source of our problems.

Complaining on line is not going to change anything! The only change will come by you turning out and voting when the time comes! And yes, your vote does make a difference!

And to the people in Southern Alberta; have you not been manipulated long enough.

Danielle Smith's loss sure shows!

It couldn't happen to a better person!  She has been playing both ends against the middle too long.  I hope it is the last we see or hear of her!

Alberta Budget-prone to a lot of things! Including your vote.

We are brought to this point because the people of Alberta decided it didn't matter to vote!  Chances are statistically if you are reading this you are one of them!

Complaining is not the same as voting!  You can bet the Conservatives will make it nearly impossible for  you to vote by last minuet changes to addresses and so on.  They have changed the vote parameters such the country vote is worth 6 of the urban vote.  That means if you are city or urban you have to turn out!  If you don't there is a financial hell awaiting you!   You can't afford to live here; I don't care what you think your situation is.

The Conservatives figure they can turn this sinking ship around using old conservative policy and practice!

First off:  Paying more for health care means paying for most of it!  It is a conservative dream to totally privatize health care!  And, they are using this self made crisis to institute it.   Witness: Alberta Blue Cross has hit the province with  a whole new batch of signup applications.   And being a Conservative organization they fail to tell you they cover nothing until you are signed up for a year!

A 50 dollar office call is nothing to Prentice and his crew. This is what you have to look forward to.

The Opposition parties have all camped on a 2500 dollar additional cost for every family!  The figure is closer to and if not over 5000 dollars extra to shell out.  Remember it is not  your expenses it is a money grab through the resulting taxes to support this Government so it can continue uninterrupted.

If you happen to be a small business with a store front remember your customers are out of pocket 5 grand before they wake up in the morning!  Rather than you worrying about your cheap income tax it is time to worry about your customer base!

We have a 30.00 charge coming at us on our utilities bill for electricity. This goes into the Government's pocket! There are 1.5 million meters spinning in this province; that is billions of dollars over the next few  years and 360 dollars per year out of your individual pockets that is one of the things not named in their budget speech and because there is a lot of thing not unlike it that I'm saying its going to cost  you over 5 grand!

The Globe reported that Norway has over a Trillion dollars in offshore banks (to ease the burden of their local economy)  Alberta took all our money and tucked it into oil corporation pockets!  That doesn't effect pensions!  That went straight into foreign operational capital.

Norway has free University for those who want it!  Norway has health care second to none in the world free!  And, they have had a socialist Government throughout! As world bankers they are coasting through this downturn which is going to last another 6  years minimum perhaps more.  We have lost all of our oil markets!  Cushing Ill where Alberta crude goes is filling more every day even though they try to get rid of it.  Cushing is one of 5 of the US oil security areas in the US.

Obama is busy building 11,600 miles of new 36" diameter pipeline across their nation to become oil self sufficient.  That market gone too!

The Price of oil is being pushed up by speculation and speculation alone!  Obama took oil from the reserves in the US when oil hit 100.00 a barrel.  That helped drop the price of oil.  There is no product more heavily manipulated than oil!  We have lost our customers!

There is no new oil contracts!  We are paying premium 2.50 per barrel to ship rail oil to Cushing to be stored!  Our oil is no more or less volatile than is the stuff moving out of the US Bakkans. Just wait!  What differs is the amount of Condensate (our's is less). But, it goes bang no matter how much is in it. Alberta's storage is topping up too; then what?

Obama is facing a date in which he has to start replacing the oil he  has drawn. My guess is he will say to hell with that date like he has disregarded so many things leaving the speculators to bankrupt themselves and he will hold out for his 20.00 oil or as close as he can get to it to replenish.

And  you hear effected unions crying pure BS!   I ask you where are the 80,000 new Albertans going to come from?   We are bleeding population every day!  And, we have at least 6 more years of the bleed.  People are finally going home; in droves.   The new houses up for resale are heart breakers.

We have one chance and one chance only to survive this in any semblance of  personal comfort and that is to vote NDP; the only sane voice in the Frey!   There are a lot of ways to approach these problems and the Conservative way is shown not to work!

The real update on Canada's oil (bad) situation.

The embargo against Russia started it all! Behind this was Germany's Merkel; not one to be shy. Russia cut the world's best (lowest) deal with China who was the golden target for oil for the western world the world of optimism; gone!

Long term and cheap! China has 5 LNG producing plants in Indonesia. The low prices China received caused her to say they were not making sufficient money and put the lot up for sale!

The Chinese operators slashed prices on LNG. Putting the Saudi into It is this low-ball LNG contest working the Saudi Market.   That dictates what the Saudi will produce. It is a BTU fight; not an oil fight.

The world looked to Japan as a huge LNG market.  Japan was forced to pay 16.00 and 17,00 per mcf which North America bought for 3.00 for the same amount. 

And, then; a change of Government in Japan who immediately started up its 3 operational Nuclear plants but not without  first asking Obama if they could be included in the North American 3.00 gas.Obama said "NO!"

This same Japanese Government has said it will have 6 more nuclear plants operating within 2 years. And, there goes the get rich fast dreams of BC and Indonesia who were selling into Japan at 15.00 and 17.00.  Japan's economy has made major improvements since.

Obama has oil shale for a new toy and has Guaranteed his producers a minimum price per barrel regardless of where the world price goes.  There has been 11,600 miles of new pipeline built from the Bakken to mid America to hook onto Gulf pipelines while Keystone is stalled. I didn't know that was legal! 

Obama then, he reduced the Saudi access into the Gulf Refinery while inking a deal with Mexico to put their supply into the Gulf for the first time.  This put more pressure on the Saudi and the world.  It is US self interest that is propelling this disaster and "our" oil companies are for the most part US and China owned.

The shale has topped up the US national storage so there is no quick unloads for all those tankers that are being used as storage. (2008 seen the US empty them into their inventory that isn't there now!)

The largest available storage is Cushing IL. and it is almost full if not so already!

The prospects of a pipeline from Cushing to the Gulf coast get lower every day as shale pipelines increase  Through its new Shale pipeline network 11,600 miles of new pipe put down already with communities signing on to the land access with no problems.

Shale has a Achilles heel! It is high in condensate, the stuff Gasoline is made of and the stuff that determines if the finished product is P40 P50 or JetB. Lots left over to make Avgas so much so that Obama passed laws saying the US for the first time can export condensate.

The Achilles Heel is in the tank cars floating lots of condensate. When gasoline is made out of it a chromium additive is put in so that the sloshing of the gas will take its ever present static charge to the ground of the gas tank to bleed away harmlessly. No such additives are added to the tank cars because the chromium is harmful in other products down the line. It takes very little gasoline to contaminate a diesel storage tank!

When I was training Dangerous Goods handling in oil patch and industry I was asked to figure out why the trucks that haul from the crude lines to other refinery or tanks were catching fire on occasion. So, I looked at the operation. 

The truckers had tied a styrene Perfex jug to a styrene line to the bottom of their tank. On a one man operation, he could stand at the line valve and turn the vapour rich hot oil off when the plastic jug showed up at the lid (vent) at the top of the tank.

What was happening; the styrene has a high propensity for static electricity. The bottle would take on a very large charge from the oil. When it touched the upper rim of the tank it would discharge harmlessly if the contact was in a vapour rich environment.

However, if there was a wind blowing and their often is, there would be lean vapour area at the truck tank vent and when the bottle arched there, it would catch the truck on fire!

Think back to the rail cars this stuff is sloshing around and there is no antistatic additives. When they go over and splash there has to be some place in that catastrophe where the air mixture is right and, up it goes.

The only way condensate content could be controlled as Obama has said is for a small refinery to be at every well head. In short, its not going to happen! Those crude oil cars remain very dangerous if they go over and the oil industry is fully familiar with this.

No, this isn't about Saudi supply nor is it about Japan's refusal to be gouged any more. It is however about a complete collapse of the traditional oil markets.  It is about the US self interest and getting the infrastructure in place before Obama is out!   Wait until the pipelines start to blow!

There is no upside! And pipelines to the sea will help in about 10 years time. My bet is we will see 20 dollar oil pretty soon and it will be lasting.

The Gulf refinery strikes are causing the filling of storage even faster so the crap storm is heading our way, even faster

To digress just a bit!  Alberta Conservatives are tapping power line construction for billions of dollars to cover their cash shortage and its all coming from your pockets (again).
AESO announced a 20.00/month increase starting immediately to cover unnamed errors.  This is to be replaced with a 30.00 per month charge soon after.
There are 1.5 million meters in this province.
At 20.00 That is 3 million dollars per month income for Prentice and company or 36 million dollars a year and they don't say how many years this is going to run!

At 30.00 per month that is 4.5 million dollars per month or 54 million dollars a year fresh taxation onto Albertans.  Yet, the Conservatives say no to a progressive tax system as in effect in the rest of the country instead leaving it on the flat tax which middle class Albertans pay the bulk of the taxes.

We need a different kind of Government to get us through this crisis; we do not need more of the same which promises to go on for more than 6 years!  The Conservatives have been lying their through their teeth on the evils of socialism and you have been eating it up like kids to candy.

Norway since it broke away from Sweden has had a continuing Socialist Government!  They have hundreds of billions of dollars in the banks off shore.  Off shore so as not to mess with the local economies.  Every Norwegian is guaranteed a university education free if they want it.   Their medical facilities are among the most advanced in Europe!  There is no shortage of professionals to staff the health care!  There is no shortage of beds!.

The Conservatives have robbed our Heritage fund of more than 700 billion dollars.  They have run a 30% discount on our oil for over 10 years.  This amounts to trillions lost to the province and producers.

I am going to continue to support the NDP, the only party that has shown any degree of sanity.
If you don't vote; nothing will change and you will hate the outcome.

Conservatives taxing us though our power lines?

#Here is a new and I think, accurate supplication as to what is going financially with the Conservatives. I don't believe in coincidences!

First off AESO is not prone to error. In their business they can’t be flippant with money! Yet they declared what amounts to a couple billion dollars error in oversight.

They tell us our power bills will go up immediately by 20 dollars a month (previously unseen cost in power line-adjustment) and thereafter within a month or so it will jump to 30.00 per month. They presented this in the same fashion of a line charge (a charge that goes onto a bill for a specific repair and comes off when the project is completed). However they never said what the money was needed for, who was going to get it!

There are 1.5 million meters spinning in this province and the conservatives are looking for cash. At 25.00 per month it works out to 37.5 million dollars a year! At 30.00 per month it comes up to 45 million dollars a month. That in turn will give the Conservatives 540 million dollars a year. Half a billion year of indirect taxation without a blink from the public!   Over the next 10 years that will be 10 billion dollars and everyone will  have forgot why its on there.

No answers are forthcoming from AESO or the Conservatives. Some bright star in the Conservative fold has though “The cities can get away with it unchallenged,why can't we?”

Why oil cars will keep on blowing up!

This is an opportunity for Canadian oil to put a curb on Bakken US crude being shipped rail with a linage of fiery derailments.
The #thing that is catching fire is the Condensate that is part of the crude mixture. Condensate is used to make gasoline and to mix different grades of diesel and jet fuel. It has a high propensity for generating static electricity on its own! All it needs is a proper air mixture to ignite it usually found at the vent.

Because of this your #gasoline in your car has a chromium additive "FISK" or similar. The idea here is to allow the static electricity to drain off the surface of the gasoline in the tank to walls of the car keeping it safe to drive while sloshing around.

The crude oil has no such additives and when the crude is jostled and splashed around in the tank cars the liquid retains it's static charge. If this charge is discharged at an air source with a proper minimum air mixture it will ignite; explode.

Supposedly new tank car design has nothing to do with curing this problem. There is no chromium additive to the crude that is in them because this additive would affect all product made from the crude which is not desirable for a number of reasons.

#So long as crude is shipped in tank cars there are going to be explosions and fire.

A bit on static and petroleum.
There was a time when #oil tankers were blowing up while travelling light on the ocean. It was suspected for years it was mines left over from the second world war.

Ireland would get its oil from Venezuela and it was loaded boiling hot. By the time the tanker got to Ireland and other points north, the crude had cooled more or less solidified. The ships prepared for this had giant sprinkler systems built into these mammoth size tanks. Going south the oil residue would warm in the tankers. In doing so it would give off its condensate into the tank atmosphere.
When the ship turned on its sprinklers, the sprinklers (free falling spray of sea water) would create sufficient static electricity for ignition.

More times than not the resulting residue could be pumped into the ocean leaving the tanks clean and empty. However; occasionally the conditions existed for a lightning storm in the tanks blowing the tankers out of the water.

The same risks remain prevalent in rail transport of bulk flammable liquids. Safety generally depends on keeping a vapour rich atmosphere in the tanks offering no ignition source. But, the static is always there and if it is in a collision or upset chances are in favor of an explosion.

Petroleum products in trucks.
Tanker trucks were catching fire in the oil patch.  The drivers were standing by the tanker trucks watching for a tethered perfex bottle to appear at the vent.  The fires seemed random with no explanation available.   I was asked in as "The Dangerous Goods Training Center" and found their whole lack of knowledge of static electricity was putting them in harms way on a daily; hourly basis.

The crude that came out of the pipes was hot and carried a very high static charge from friction.  Because it was hot  a vapour rich area was formed in the void of the tank.  As the tank filled, HVB and LVB (condensate components) was forced out of the vent on top of the tank leaving a vapor rich area around the vent.  When the perfex bottle appeared at the vent it would discharge as polypropylene has a high propensity for collecting static electricity. 

If however there was a light breeze blowing across the vent it would leave a lean air mixture at the vent perfect for ignition on static discharge.

Other areas was the filling of the trucks at the racks.  They  had long nozzles hanging on the racks unused opting instead for the lighter shorter foot long nozzle.  Splash filling a flammable liquid was the norm.  They learned a bit about static electricity and opted for the long spouts to fill the tanks from the bottom.

After 2 such seminars the oil companies barred me from going back.  I advocated clean coveralls and coverall change being available. I advocated proper earthing procedure and some racks were not equipped for proper earthing.  My seminars would last up to 6 hours as I handled all questions.   This apparently too much for oil to take.

Point is it is another venue where tankers blow up and that is not going to change.  Oil companies should check their Liability Insurance if they wish to continue.

Recovery in a few years a dream!

We won't see the first part of a recovery for  6 years perhaps 7 and here is why.  The President of France has asked the EU to give up on the Russian Embargo which would do nothing at this point in time! He was rejected. Countries are playing down the Embargo and are more or less blaming the oil and LNG problem on fairies. Putin hooped them!

 Here is a link to what we could have been.

Oil suppliers around the world are leasing tankers for 1 to 2 years to store oil they can't sell with options to lengthen.  They are also saying times are better than 08 as there are more tankers available!

This stored oil will have to be used up before any new production can make it into the pipes. I'm saying 5 years for any improvements and 6 or 7 years before there is storage for new oil output. But; the world is set perfectly for a #protracted war.   Only a catastrophic failure like a war starting in the middle east and escalating though the Crimea and the world can change this scenario and, for the worse. Our young people as cannon fodder again.  

Recent propaganda pictures of Putin talking nuclear strike alternatives with his henchmen is at this point saber rattling.

Alberta's oil is being shipped by rail to the US where it goes into storage in Cushing Ill. Storage is expensive and limited.  The oil pipelines from Cushing to Texas Gulf are hitting their own problems it will be years before there is one; if then.

The US cannot refuse Canadian oil but it is all mixed in with market capacity in the US.  Obama signed a deal with Mexico to allow them to ship to the Gulf Refinery.  Obama has a surplus of oil coming out of shale that wasn't there before.   #Both these large items reduce the amount of oil they have to take from Canada!  Obama is hooping the Republicans who incidentally did the same thing to him.   

The Bakken Shale oil  is very high in High Vapor Base apparently.  This is the stuff that gasoline is made of.  Static build up in transit can cause ignition when exposed to enough air.  You either use to to make Gasoline or you reinject it back into the strata.  If you choose the latter it will turn out like Norman Wells, NWT where so much #condensate was injected back that it started to show up as an increasing high content at the wellhead meaning more cost and time to get it out of the oil so they can make P30;40 50 and jet fuel.  Point is it does not come out of a separate spout it is part of the crude!  US oil lies when it says they have in any way increased the flash point of their crude!  I see room for lawsuits here!

It is so rich in HVB which is very volatile the cars were self igniting causing ruling they had to reduce the amount of condensate in the crude.  Mini Refineries at wellhead?    They did this but still have had 3 fiery crashes which means they have to cut back more if they are serious about prevention.    This puts a glut of condensate in the US who now, for the first time ever have given permission to export condensate from the US.  Worthwhile to note our Tar Sands needs Condensate to enrich the crude.

#Prentice (Alberta) tells us here on the 18th there will be 3 years before any oil norms are reached!  That is Impossible and still another lie!  I'm saying the #oil will still be in those tankers at least  4 years down the road and that will have to be used before they can tap into new production. I'm saying up to 7 years before there is an improvement and predicting thousands laid off in the meantime.  As of now we have lost all of our markets! 

Consumer buying power in the west will be drastically reduced further dampening the world economy.  This is a bad time to be over financed on dream homes and boy's toy's! 

Obama has helped his people by guaranteeing companies in the shale production a working price on their oil.  Alberta can't do that; they blew it all; giving it away to oil!  We have nothing to face except higher taxes.

Prentice is jigging to get himself past the spring election as is Harper and this pipeline will give them another shot at the ring where there is nothing in their futures now.

#Harper and Kenny's bizarre immigration plan to legalize American oil patch illegals does nothing better than compound the problems faced by Alberta and all provinces! The criminal element they brought in with their stand on no vetting; no background checks is coming back to bite us. No matter which way you look at it Conservatives have made it worse.  Vancouver BC is now reporting Mexican Cartel gangs running the dope.  We never had that before!

In 2008 the Americans purchased the surplus oil in the tankers shortening considerably the drought. Not so this time, the Americans have their own shale oil they are topping up their storage!

As for #Saudi being the bad guys? It is simply not so! 

At the heart of it all is the West embargo on Russia who immediately responded with Gazprom inking a long term cheap oil and LNG deals with China. China to this point was the sacred market of the west including BC. I say cheap and long term because *China responded by saying their LNG plants (5 of them) in Indonesia are not making money enough so put them all up for sale! China's CNOOC Ltd is now declaring large losses on their petroleum.

The #Chinese operating company of these LNG (China's CNOOC Ltd) plants started their own price cutting scheme about the same time Gazprom declared an increase in output and opened up exports increasing them in Indonesia, China and Russia. All this is #Saudi turf; what would you have them do? 

It is Putin who hooped our diplomats and took our markets; not the Saudi. I see #Merkel's hand on all of it.

The US limited Saudi input into the Gulf refinery hurting them further. This, while Obama inked a deal with Mexico to import their heavy crude into the Gulf Refinery and haul away Condensates to upgrade their crude in their own country. 

Perhaps Obama is playing the long game; looking 7 years down the road and wants a place to put the US oil?

This put the cold wash on the Keystone pipeline. At best; a world of uncertainty. In case you missed it; all of our existing markets have gone!  #Stopping the embargo on Russia is not going to change anything now. Its in the works for years to come.

Japan (Christies(BC) big dream) who the petroleum people looked upon as a gold mine asked Obama if they could get in on the 3.00 LNG market north America. He said no. Christie in BC's get rich fast deal went down the tubes. A new Government in Japan! Immediately 3 nuclear plants re-commissioned with notice they will build 6 more state of the art plants within the next two years. 

The Conservatives in Alberta have been lying for years. They have pulled trillions of dollars yes, Trillions out of Alberta's economy and tucked it into the oil pockets. 

Quick list:

Heritage trust frozen at 5% everything else went into General Revenues as taxes.. Loss to Alberta  over 700 billion dollars.

They discounted our oil by 30% going into any deal. Trillions lost there over the years. 

We collect zero for royalty and have not collected any for several years. Multi millions lost there. 

Flat tax: middle class pay the bulk of the taxes; industry gets a free ride.  This is money taken off your table.

I don't want to loose my home; my pensions. I will be supporting the Federal Liberals and the Alberta NDP who will put in a variable tax like the rest of Canada has. The 10% tax in place makes the middle and low income pay the lion's share of the taxes while oil floats free. The Alberta Liberals take the same position.  A link to their platform and history  

Other choices?  None realistically.  The Alberta Party was invented by the oil companies not to win anything, but to split the vote on the left because they haven't gone anywhere to date they probably don't get the bills paid for by oil.  

No my friends, there is no up side!

Other Ministers have been busy too.  Cardinal sold or leased all the crown free grazing lands on the east slope of the Rockies to the Agra Food Industry (Nestle?)  That is where all our water aquifers start!  First in line, first in time for settling water disputes.

When an oil company #asked for a bucket of water they were given a swimming pool!  In this way the Conservatives used up all the water allotments.  On one side these allotments can be sold; Is this the end of Provincial ownership?  On the other end oil companies can claim they used only a small portion of their allotments when challenged on their use of the water.

Brooks ran short of water because of their allotment numbers not because there was no water available.  They #paid an oil company 1 million dollars for a portion of their water allotments who in turn claim they gave it to an unnamed charity.  A second allotment was bought from an Conservative insider for an undisclosed amount.

The St. Mary's water agreement was/is under pressure.  The Americans figure now they were hooped when they gave that amount of water off the St. Mary's Glacier to Canada.

Cardinal worked his crooked magic.  The #Water Association for St. Mary's was overhauled.  If a person did not have property on the St. Mary's aquifer they were removed from any membership.  Only people who were actually on the aquifer could vote.  Rock piles that were on the aquifer but not leased or owned were quickly sold to insiders it is all about the privatization of water in Alberta and Canada.

It is a good time to mention #Harper has three times refused to acknowledge water as a human right in Canada!  It brings to mind a photo I seen about a Bechtel water operation in I think Africa.  Only blacks in the picture carrying tin petro buckets on their heads and a person being refused water because he didn't have 5 cents to pay for a bucket full.

Harper has turned loose hundreds of #water export permits from Canada. The Royal Bank holds a lot of them.

#Electricity:

When Klein "privatized" Electricity he invented Power Purchase Agreement.  A generator could not own transmission was at the crux of it so the generation from each plant was sold as a PPA public bids were asked for, no names of who bid or what was bid were ever released.  Big buck insiders reported as the participants.  Reports of the PPA's being flipped as many as 3 times before being handed over to the cities.  Millions in profits were taken every flip.

It was reported at the time the Alberta taxpayers lost 7 billion dollars in the deal!   This ushered in the era of indirect taxation.  Less money was given by the province to the cities.  The cities were given free reign on what they charged for power or what they added on as line charges (Line charge being 1 item on the bill that presumably comes off when the item is paid for)   EPCOR made it to National Geographic in April 2010 as being the highest priced water in the world.  Fortis have been said to say they are not making any money in Alberta and want out.  Soon after a US private buyer was announced by the Government. 

AESO who are not prone to error declared a several billion dollar error.   Who could have guessed?

They said we will be billed 20 dollars more per month initially moving rapidly up to 30.00 per month.

There are 1.5 million meters spinning in Alberta. At 20 dollars a meter is 3 million dollars a month new income for someone.  At 30 dollars per meter is 4.5 million dollars a month for someone or #54 million dollars a year for no defined number of years  of indirect taxation; no explanations.

BC's #Site C dam has been refused for years because at 1100 mwh it cannot pay for itself. However it does create a lake from which water can be pumped year around which is required by the Weatherford project. Site C is about exporting the Peace River not about generating electricity!

http://albertathedetails.blogspot.ca/2015/01/weatherford-project-detailed.html

I don't see how Christie can make sweeping good will promises in this wreckage of an economy we are living in.