Shell lets customers offset carbon emissions for 2 cents per litre


Dan Healing, The Canadian Press
Nov 12, 2020

CALGARY - Shell Canada is letting carbon-conscious customers get their two cents in for the environment while filling up at one of its 1,400 stations across Canada.

The Canadian branch of Royal Dutch Shell is launching its Drive Carbon Neutral program on Thursday to allow customers to help it buy offset credits to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions from the production, refining and burning of fossil fuels.

“We see a lot of demand from customers to start helping. How can a customer who maybe can't afford to buy an electric car, but wants to do something to help the environment, get involved?” said Shell Canada president Michael Crothers in an interview.

“This is part of the transition while we continue to shift our energy mix as a company towards renewable power and renewable fuels.”

The program offered through Shell's EasyPay app will be free of charge until the end of December when those who choose to continue will be asked to contribute two cents per litre.


When customers opt-in via the app, Shell says it calculates the amount of carbon emissions that will be produced by the fuel they purchase and buys the equivalent in carbon credits to offset the emissions. It said it is sourcing carbon credits from the Darkwoods Forest Carbon Project, an initiative of the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

It's believed the program is the first of its kind in Canada, Crothers said, adding Shell's similar offerings in Europe have been well-received, with nearly 20 per cent of customers in Netherlands, for example, signing up. 

IT'S A DUTCH COMPANY NATIONALISM/PATRIOTISM

AS MUCH AS ENVIRONMENTALISM

The move was denounced as “pure greenwashing” by Keith Brooks, program director at Environmental Defence.

“Not only does it put the onus on the individual consumer instead of a massive polluter like Shell, it also offers them the chance to seek absolution for their climate sins rather than grappling with the fact that we need to get off of fossil fuels, gasoline included,” he said in an email on Thursday.

“And yet more insidious, the green veneer is obscuring Shell's ongoing efforts to stymie and scuttle climate policy through their membership in Canada's regressive climate lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.”

Shell also announced Thursday it will provide funding for a B.C. Interior reforestation project in partnership with Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation, a Tsilhqot'in forestry company, to plant 840,000 native trees.

“Our communities were devastated by the wildfires in 2017, which were the result of poorly managed forests,” said Chief Joe Alphonse, tribal chairman for the Tsilhqot'in National Government, in a statement.

“The reforestation project is an opportunity for economic growth within our nation and will help to ensure that the forests are properly managed for the benefit of all here now, and for future generations.”

The cost of the two-year tree-planting project isn't being released. Crothers said the funding has been approved even though the current regulatory system doesn't allow Shell to obtain carbon offset credits from it, although the hope is that could change in the future.

Royal Dutch Shell plans to invest US$200 million in 2020 and 2021 in natural ecosystems as part of its global climate change program. The company has set a target of being a net zero emitter by 2050.

Shell's presence in Canada was reduced in 2017 when it sold most of its Alberta oilsands assets to Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., although it is the operator and retains a 10 per cent interest in the Scotford upgrader and Quest carbon capture and storage project near Edmonton, located next to its 100 per cent owned refinery and chemicals plants.

It also heads up the consortium building the $40-billion LNG Canada export project on the West Coast and retains interests in conventional oil and gas production.

Shell wants Biden to reverse methane emissions rollback
David Wethe, Bloomberg News 
Nov 10, 2020

A Royal Dutch Shell Plc logo stands on an exterior wall at the company's lubricants blending plant in Torzhok, Russia, on Wednesday, Feb. 7, 2018. , Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

Royal Dutch Shell Plc will push for the reversal of President Donald Trump’s rollback of methane emissions rules and the introduction of carbon pricing when Joe Biden moves into the White House next year.

“Some of the regulatory rollbacks that we’ve seen under the current administration haven’t actually benefited our industry,” Shell U.S. President Gretchen Watkins said Tuesday on a webcast hosted by the Greater Houston Partnership.

The easing of direct regulation of methane emissions put the energy industry in a “backwards-facing position,” while the absence of carbon pricing makes it harder to incentivize new technologies like carbon capture, Watkins said.

“Whoever is in the White House, we will work constructively with them and are actually very much looking forward to building that relationship with the new administration that’s coming in in January,” she added.

The oil and gas industry, which has long been the target of environmental groups, faces increasing pressure from shareholders managing trillions of dollars to address greenhouse-gas emissions such as methane. Shell joined BP Plc in September in calling for Texas regulators to end the routine flaring of natural gas, a by-product of the oil boom in the shale patch.

Methane emissions are higher than thought in Canadian oil patch

Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News

Methane emissions from Canada’s oil and gas industry in recent years were almost twice as high as previously thought, a study showed.

Oil-sands mines and other fossil fuel developments in Alberta and Saskatchewan released 3 million metric tons of methane into the air between 2010 and 2017, according to a report published in Environmental Science and Technology that used hourly atmospheric measurements during winter months. That compares with 1.6 million estimated in Canada’s National Inventory Report.

Alberta, which holds the world’s third-largest crude reserves, has struggled with a plunge in investments even before this year’s oil market crash partly because of growing concerns over climate change. Methane is one of the most harmful greenhouse gases.

Recently, Alberta and the federal government reached an agreement on aligning regulations to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas facilities as part of an effort to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 30 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030.

The report titled “Eight-Year Estimates of Methane Emissions from Oil and Gas Operations in Western Canada Are Nearly Twice Those Reported in Inventories” was written by Elton Chan, Douglas E. J. Worthy, Douglas Chan, Misa Ishizawa, Michael D. Moran, Andy Delcloo, and Felix Vogel.

Trump to rush drilling leases in Arctic before Biden takes over

Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Bloomberg News
Nov 13, 2020


The Trump administration is advancing plans to auction drilling rights in the U.S. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden, who has vowed to block oil exploration in the rugged Alaska wilderness.

The Interior Department is set to issue a formal “call for nominations” as soon as Monday, kick-starting a final effort to get input on what tracts to auction inside the refuge’s 1.56-million-acre coastal plain. The plans were described by two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named detailing administration strategy.

Biden has pledged to permanently protect the refuge, saying drilling there would be a “big disaster.” But those efforts could be complicated if the Trump administration sells drilling rights first. Formally issued oil and gas leases on federal land are government contracts that can’t be easily yanked.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated the refuge’s coastal plain might hold between 4.3 billion and 11.8 billion barrels of technically recoverable crude. Yet it’s unclear how many oil companies would have the appetite to mount costly operations in the remote Arctic wilderness amid low crude prices, steep public opposition, and regulatory uncertainty. Major U.S. banks have sworn off financing Arctic drilling projects, and conservationists are also pressuring oil executives to rule out work in the region.

Environmentalists argue Arctic oil development imperils one of the country’s last truly wild places -- a swath of northeast Alaska populated by polar bears, caribou, and more than 200 species of birds.

The Trump administration is also fast-tracking a proposal to conduct 3-D seismic surveys inside the refuge before Jan. 20. The surveys can help pinpoint possible underground oil reserves, but environmentalists warn they are large industrial operations that threaten polar bears hidden in snow-covered dens.

Oil companies that buy leases in the refuge might never get the opportunity to use them while Biden is in the White House. Even if leases are sold and issued before Jan. 20, companies will need permits governing air pollution, animal harm, water usage and rights of way that the new administration could stall or deny.

Congress mandated the Interior Department hold two auctions of coastal plain oil leases before Dec. 22, 2024. But environmentalists, states and indigenous groups have already mounted legal challenges against the leasing plan. Any victory by the conservationists or settlement with the Biden administration requiring more environmental review could jeopardize leases.

Interior Department representatives didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. The “call for nominations” will help Interior’s Bureau of Land Management decide the contours of an auction. The agency still must issue a formal “notice of sale” before holding one.

Inter Pipeline hopes to find petrochemical partner in the first half of 2021

Dan Healing, The Canadian Press

Nov 13, 2020

CALGARY -- Inter Pipeline says it hopes to conclude its search for a partner in its $4-billion petrochemical project now under construction near Edmonton in the first half of next year.

"We continue to advance the process to secure a partner for a material interest in the Heartland Petrochemical Complex," said CEO Christian Bayle on a conference call on Friday.

"We expect that work ... will take into next year to conclude the process; however, there's no assurance a transaction will be completed."

Analysts pointed out the quest for a partner had previously been expected to wrap up by early 2021, although Bayle said there's little significance to the change in wording.

Inter has been looking for a partner since late 2019 to share the cost of the project which has increased from the original estimate of about $3.5 billion.

The Calgary-based company concluded a deal to sell a majority of its European bulk liquid storage business to the CLH Group for $715 million earlier this week and Bayle said those proceeds, along with available credit lines, will help the company go ahead with funding the remaining $1.1 billion needed for the petrochemical project on its own if necessary.

Bayle praised the Alberta government's petrochemical incentive program announced at the end of October which offers grants worth 12 per cent of eligible capital costs once a project is up and running.

Inter received $200 million in royalty credits in connection with the Heartland project in 2016 under the previous NDP government's incentive program and Bayle said his understanding is that those credits can be converted to cash payments under the new program when the complex is in service in early 2022.

He wouldn't say if the program will encourage the company to build more projects.

Inter plans to eventually sell its remaining eight storage terminals in Sweden and Denmark, Bayle said, adding those assets aren't being marketed yet.

Inter reported third quarter net income of $38.7 million on revenue of $633 million, versus income of $79.9 million on revenue of $591 million in the same period last year.

Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected net income of $75.6 million on revenue of $555.5 million.

During the quarter, oil sands pipeline volumes fell to 1.06 million barrels per day from 1.18 million bpd in the year-earlier period.

Inter was forced to shut down part of its Polaris pipeline system for about two weeks after a leak was detected just east of the Fort McMurray airport in northern Alberta at the end of August.

Inter shares fell by as much as 85 cents or 6.4 per cent to $12.40 in Toronto on Friday.

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Westcoast Energy fined $40,000 for blast near Prince George, B.C. two years ago

BNN Bloomberg Nov 13, 2020

Pipework stands on the European Gas Pipeline Link (EUGAL) Radeland 2 compressor station, which accommodates downstream gas flows from the Nord Stream 2 project, in Radeland, Germany, on Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2020. , Bloomberg

CALGARY - Westcoast Energy has been fined for failing to prevent a fiery pipeline blast northeast of Prince George, B.C., two years ago that led to natural gas shortages in the province through the winter.

The Enbridge subsidiary was issued the $40,000 fine after the Canada Energy Regulator determined Westcoast did not adequately implement a stress corrosion monitoring program that would have identified the problem section of the pipe.

In its final report released in March, the Transportation Safety Board said the 90-centimetre pipeline that supplies much of southern B.C. ruptured due to stress corrosion cracks on the outside surface of the pipe.

The safety board said the company didn't follow its own procedures in technical assessment and approvals before deciding to defer the inspection that may have identified the cracks.

No one was hurt in the Oct. 9, 2018, explosion but 125 people within a two-kilometre radius had to be evacuated as a precaution.

Since the blast, Enbridge says it has completed enhanced inspections on its natural gas pipeline system to prevent similar incidents.

 

Chile copper miners likely to nix Lundin offer, union says

James Attwood, Bloomberg News

A mining truck carries minerals to be milled at the Ferrobamba pit, one of the three pits that will be mined by MMG Ltd.'s Las Bambas, in the Challhuahuacho district of Peru, on Monday, Jan. 23, 2017. Peru posted its biggest trade surplus in five years in December, as rising copper output and higher prices boosted exports. The South American country last year overtook China to became the world's biggest copper producer after Chile, allowing it to record its first annual trade surplus in three years. Photographer: Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

Workers at the Candelaria copper mine in Chile are leaning toward rejecting owner Lundin Mining Corp.’s latest wage offer, signaling that a strike will extend into a second month, according to a union leader.

Management presented a new proposal to the AOS union on Thursday that included a signing bonus of 17.5 million pesos (US$22,800) per worker. The monetary aspects of the offer have improved, but benefits continue to fall short of demands, AOS President Evelyn Walter said. There is also a gap between what underground and open-pit workers earn that needs to be addressed, she said.

Given Toronto-based Lundin’s proposal was a formal offer, the union is obliged under Chilean labor laws to hold a vote. That will take place on Tuesday.

“The trend for now among members is rejection,” Walter said by telephone.

The union’s 500-plus members have been on strike since Oct. 20, with the mine largely halted since then, although one processing plant continues to operate. Another smaller union has also walked of the job. Union leaders accuse management of intransigence, while the company has condemned a series of road blocks during the strike. Tensions flared earlier this year over staff cuts.

Candelaria produced 111,400 metric tons last year, government data show. While that’s a small fraction of the output at giant mines owned by BHP Group and Codelco, the collapse in talks underscores supply risks in a country that accounts for a quarter of global production.

Chile is entering into a busy period of collective bargaining at a time of strong Chinese demand that has copper at the priciest in more than two years. Mines owner by BHP and Antofagasta Plc narrowly avoided strikes earlier this year while two unions at Antofagasta’s Centinela mine are currently engaged in wage talks, as is a small union at Codelco’s El Teniente.

Despite operating with reduced staffing levels, Chilean mines have largely maintained output during the pandemic, allowing the country to fully benefit from high prices. While concerns over job security may give companies an advantage in the wage negotiations, unions are digging in, empowered by a year of social unrest that led to voters opting to draft a new constitution.

“The effort of workers who continued to work in a pandemic must be rewarded in negotiations,” said Distrito Centinela union boss Luis Redlich.

Enbridge faces new fight as Michigan seeks Line 5 shutdown

Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News

Enbridge Inc.’s battle with Michigan escalated on Friday as the governor took new legal action to shut down a key pipeline that supplies Central Canadian refineries

Governor Gretchen Whitmer filed a complaint in Ingham County Circuit Court seeking to “revoke and terminate” an 1953 easement that allows Enbridge to operate under the Straits of Mackinac, which connect Michigan’s upper and lower peninsulas. Line 5 is a key conduit of crude for Canadian refineries in Ontario and Quebec.

“Enbridge’s Line 5 is a grave and unreasonable risk to the state’s residents and natural resources and requires the pipeline to be shut down 180 days from now, on May 12, 2021,” the state said in a release Friday. Enbridge didn’t respond to an email seeking comment. The shares erased earlier gains following news of the latest legal action and were down 0.8% at C$37.69 at 1:47 p.m. in Toronto.

Enbridge has been in a long-running battle over the pipeline with Michigan’s Democratic administration, which views the line as an environmental threat to the Great Lakes. In June, a judge ordered Enbridge to temporarily halt operations of Line 5 amid concern about possible damage.\

The temporary shutdown of both the eastern and western segments prompted Imperial Oil Ltd. to warn of possible production cuts at its Sarnia and Nanticoke refineries. While Michigan governor wants to shut the pipeline, Enbridge seeks to make the line more secure by building a tunnel under the strait to house the line.

STOLEN LAND ILLEGAL SETTLEMENTS
Israel advances plans to build 1,200 homes in sensitive east Jerusalem settlement

Approval of the 1,200 homes is further setback to dwindling hopes of internationally backed partition deal 

Tia Goldenberg

Israel Palestinians Settlements Biden
(Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

A settlement watchdog group said on Sunday that Israel is moving ahead with new construction of hundreds of homes in a strategic East Jerusalem settlement that threatens to cut off parts of the city claimed by Palestinians from the West Bank.

The group, Peace Now, said the Israel Land Authority announced on its website Sunday that it had opened up tenders for more than 1,200 new homes in the key settlement of Givat Hamatos in East Jerusalem.

The move may test ties with the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden, who is expected to take a firmer tack against Israeli settlement expansion after four years of a more lenient policy under President Donald Trump, who has largely turned a blind eye to settlement construction.

The approval of the 1,200 homes is a further setback to dwindling hopes of an internationally backed partition deal that would enable the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

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The Palestinians along with critics of Israel's settlement policy say construction in the Givat Hamatos settlement would seal off the Palestinian city of Bethlehem and the southern West Bank from east Jerusalem, further cutting off access for the Palestinians to that part of the city.

"This is a continuation of the current Israeli government policy in destroying the two-state solution," said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Sunday's development comes as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to travel to the region this week, where he is expected to visit an Israeli settlement in the West Bank— a stop previous U.S. secretaries of state have avoided. Palestinian officials, who have cut off ties with the Trump administration over its policies in favor of Israel, have denounced Pompeo's planned visit. Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh tweeted on Friday that this was a "dangerous precedent" that legalizes settlements.


Brian Reeves, a spokesman for Peace Now, said the move Sunday allows contractors to begin bidding on the tenders, a process that will conclude just days before Biden's inauguration. Construction could then begin within months.

"This is a lethal blow to the prospects for peace," Peace Now said in a statement, adding that Israel was "taking advantage of the final weeks of the Trump administration in order to set facts on the ground that will be exceedingly hard to undo in order to achieve peace."

The Palestinians seek the West Bank, along with the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — areas Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war — for their future state. With nearly 500,000 settlers now living in the West Bank, and over 220,000 more in east Jerusalem, the Palestinians say the chances of establishing their state are quickly dwindling.


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Much of Jerusalem is already blocked off from the West Bank by a series of checkpoints and the separation barrier. Israel has previously moved forward on plans to build in E1, another sensitive area east of Jerusalem that critics say, with Givat Hamatos, would block east Jerusalem off entirely from the West Bank.

After four years of Trump, whose policies were hugely favorable toward Israel and who shrugged at settlement building, Israel faces a new reality under Biden, who will likely restore the previous U.S. position that viewed settlements as illegitimate and an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians.

Under previous administrations, Israel held back on building plans in the most sensitive areas, including Givat Hamatos, amid opposition by both Washington and the international community, which saw such plans as dashing hopes for a contiguous Palestinian state.

But Israel has been emboldened under Trump, approving thousands of new settlement homes during his term, including in highly contested areas. Many of those plans are expected to break ground after Biden assumes the presidency.

With the Trump administration in its final weeks in office, Israel may be aiming to push ahead on contentious projects before Biden's term starts, a move that could set it on the wrong foot with the new president.

Trump Supporters Mocked For ‘Million MAGA March’

By Lauren Dubois @l_dubois613
11/14/20 



Supporters of US President Donald Trump gather in Washington, DC on November 13 Photo: AFP / 

Supporters of President Donald Trump who are contesting the results of the election will be taking to Washington D.C. exactly one week after President-Elect Joe Biden was declared the victor to protest—but the groups attending the event are finding themselves the subjects of laughter on social media.

The rally is set following more complaints by both the President and his supporters that millions of illegal votes were cast in favor of Biden, in an attempt to cast doubt on the validity of his impending presidency. The President has also refused to concede the election, and supporters have reportedly been arriving in the nation’s capital for the march throughout the morning, KRQE 13 reported.

The Washington Post also reported that among the group of protestors were white nationalists and Infowars founder Alex Jones, who reportedly was seen leading a caravan of gun-toting protesters to the Captial building.

However, while those attending the protest likely plan to use it to show their support for the President and make it clear that they won’t accept the results of the election, they also found themselves the subject of mockery and ridicule on social media as well.

Many criticized the purpose of the movement, with some pointing out that Trump’s supporters have radically changed their tune from how they acted when Hilary Clinton supporters expressed their upset when she lost in 2016, and poking fun at the fact that they aren’t accepting the results of the election.

“I remember 4 years ago being told to suck it up after the election results,” one person wrote. “Now the same [EXPLETIVE] are now crying over the results and want to march for the 2020 loser. [EXPLETIVE] clowns lmao biden won [EXPLETIVE].”

Others called out the fact that the protestors were claiming election fraud, when attempts prior to the election were made to seemingly throw the election in Trump’s favor.

There were also calls for it to be policed the same way Black Lives Matter protests were earlier in the year.

“Are the #MarchForTrump, #MAGAMarchDC racist sexist non-mask wearing [EXPLETIVE] going to get tear gassed and murdered by cops like the #BlackLivesMetter protesters were?” one asked.

Others just poked fun in general.

The President has not spoken about the march on his Twitter account as of press time, though he has continued to make claims of election fraud.


Kayleigh McEnany busted after boasting ‘More than one MILLION marchers’ showed up in DC for the MAGA rally

Published on November 14, 2020 By Tom Boggioni- Commentary

Kayleigh McEnany speaks to reporters without mask a day before testing positive for COVID-19 (CNN/screen grab)

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was raked over the coals on Saturday afternoon after claiming on Twitter that “more than one million” Donald Trump supports showed up in the streets of Washington, DC, to support the president who lost to Vice President Joe Biden.

McEnany, who once declared she would never lie to the American public, wrote, “AMAZING! More than one MILLION marchers for President @realDonaldTrump descend on the swamp in support. Best base in political history — we LOVE you guys!!!”

Commenters on Twitter were quick to point that her numbers were not reality-based