Friday, October 05, 2007

Alberta Needs A Chavez

Big Oil is using all the hype it can to say it will divest itself from Alberta if they have to pay increased royalties. Yeah sure. We have the oil and gas that they need. So quit making idle threats. They threaten to leave, they compare us to Venezuela So either they pay the pittance asked of them by the Royalty Review Committee or we should do exactly what they say; nationalize them under workers control.

After all they seem to forget that while they and their right wing apologists claim that they 'invest' in the development oil and gas, and this makes them the real owners, their investment is the result of capital accumulated from living and dead labour. Labour is required not just capital. And we have both.


International oil producers will flee Alberta if the Western Canadian province's government implements a proposed hike to oil and natural gas royalties and taxes, an investment bank said on Monday.

Going ahead with a recommended 20 percent, or C$2 billion, hike to Alberta's take from oil and gas production in the province will actually cause government revenue to drop as production falls by half-a-million barrels a day, according to Tristone Capital Inc, an investment bank that serves the oil and gas industry.


Shoddy report on royalties robs Alberta

Terence Corcoran, Financial Post

Published: Thursday, October 04, 2007

Another Alberta resource player, this time Jim Buckee at Talisman, has joined the growing corporate chorus against proposals to raise royalties on the province's energy output. If the plan goes ahead, said Mr. Buckee in a letter yesterday to Premier Ed Stelmach, Talisman "would likely cut $500-million" in capital spending.

Other companies waiving red flags over Alberta -- described jauntily by Deutsche Bank analysts as a new "Bolivarian Republic" -- include EnCana, Crescent Point Energy and Petro-Canada. By now, several billion dollars in new investment have been put in doubt since the royalty proposals were floated two week ago by an outfit called the Alberta Royalty Review Panel. Claiming Albertans aren't getting their fair share of energy-resource royalties, the panel proposed a new regime to extract another $2-billion a year out of oil and gas production.

Based on the great socialist-statist principle revered by Alberta Conservatives, that mineral resources are "owned by the people," the review panel easily worked its way up to the idea that the people weren't getting enough of a share as owners.
Socialist Conservatives? Oh please gimme a break. They were the heroes of neo-cons for the past decade, heroes to dweebs like Corcoran. Now by asking for a fair share, and mind you its a small share based on extensive lobbying by the industry during the committees public hearings, Prince Eddie is suddenly being compared to Hugo Chavez.

The reality is that they already knew that Alberta's conventional oil and gas reserves are in a serious decline. Increasing royalties will not change that.They are making much ado about nothing to scare Albertans into accepting less than our fair share.

Don't Let Big Oil Set Our Royalty Rates make sure Ed hears from you.



SEE:

Albertans Are Simpletons Says Government

Royalty Is NOT A Tax

Fearless Prediction Confirmed

Morons

More Shills For Big Oil

Stelmach Sells Out

King Ralph Shills For Big Oil


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3 comments:

Cliff said...

Love that title and I wish I'd thought of it. It's the kind of statement that would make heads explode here in Calgary. I think I'll repeat it loudly in conversation the next time some petro-dollar boob in a garish power tie walks by...

Feynman and Coulter's Love Child said...

their investment is the result of capital accumulated from living and dead labour

The closest this is to being true is the fact that the oil is sort of there because some dinosaur exercised once.

Socialist Conservatives? Oh please gimme a break. They were the heroes of neo-cons for the past decade

Really? Then why does this company still exist? Why are there conditions on Section 85(2)(b) of the Traffic Safety Act?

Pretty much the only person I can think of who started Liberal and became Conservative (ie. a "neoCon") and liked Klein's policies was Klein himself. And he never stopped being a liberal, so it was all nomenclature anyways.

Tally-Ho said...

75% of oil is owned by state-owned companies. To be frank, these oil and energy companies have no room to negotiate. It's all about the "new seven sisters" as The Financial Ties termed them, who have the power: the nationalized oil companies. Too bad Brian Mulroney privatized our former Crown Corporation Petro-Canada, huh, I think it'd be pretty damn useful in both Newfoundland's Hibernia and Alberta's oil sands since they would be working for all Canadians, and we wouldn't have to wory about lawsuits and negotiating with foreign investors. I know some Albertans complain about how Norway has a huge wealth fund from their oil; well, Norway also has three nationalized oil companies who work in the public interest. Now we don't even have Petro-Canada anymore.

And IMO, busting the Alberta oil boom would probably be a good thing. 6% inflation, yippee...

Good links about this: Venezuela's and Canada's Very Different Approaches to Oil

NDP history page (they created Petro-Canada in a Liberal minority government): History of NDP