3,000 march in Toronto in support of Palestinian people, police estimate

CBC
Tue, May 7, 2024

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators march in downtown Toronto on Tuesday. (CBC - image credit)

Thousands gathered in downtown Toronto as part of a pro-Palestinian protest on Tuesday evening.

Toronto police estimate that 3,000 people are taking part in the demonstration.

The "Hands off Rafah!" protest, which began outside the Israeli consulate at Yonge and Bloor streets, headed south on St. George Street. By 9 p.m., police said the group had reached the University of Toronto campus.

Police said there have been no arrests and no altercations.

Organizers said the protest was an emergency call to action as Israel begins an assault on Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip.

pro-Palestinian demonstrators Toronto

The 'Hands off Rafah!' protest began at Yonge and Bloor streets. (CBC)

According to the Associated Press, Israeli forces have seized the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

The closed border means U.N. humanitarian teams in Gaza will run out of diesel fuel by Wednesday, a senior humanitarian official said, leaving them unable to pump drinking water, maintain communications and deliver aid.

The war in Gaza has driven around 80 per cent of the territory's population of 2.3 million from their homes and caused vast destruction to apartments, hospitals, mosques and schools across several cities. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials.

The war began Oct. 7 when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250 others. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others.

 

Michael Lee-Chin on investing in Canada’s nuclear industry

Daniel Johnson , BNN Bloomberg

One prominent Canadian businessman says he is bullish on Canada’s nuclear energy industry and has invested in the sector. 

Michael Lee-Chin, the chairman of Portland Holdings, said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg on Monday that whenever there is a shift in the most frequently used energy sources, there is a change in economic influence. Currently, he said an “inevitable” shift is occurring toward the use of nuclear power. He said that following the Paris Agreement in 2015, many countries committed to becoming net zero by 2050 and will need to transition away from fossil fuels to achieve that goal. 

“We need to replace that base fuel… and supplant it, replace it with something that's always on, highly scalable and energy-dense, but clean. And the only such source known to mankind is nuclear fission,” he said. 

According to Lee-Chin, nuclear energy will come predominantly in the form of small modular reactors (SMR) and micro modular reactors that can be quickly produced in factories. 

“So what we're doing, we're investing in everything upstream of the SMR and downstream (of) what SMRs will enable, like hydrogen as an example,” he said. 

Additionally, Lee-Chin said Canada is “uniquely positioned” to grow its nuclear power capabilities, especially in Ontario; a province that is vertically integrated due to being consumers of nuclear power and having the raw materials in the region. 

“It would be a shame if Ontario didn't build an industry to take advantage of the huge demand for…nuclear expertise in all areas,” he said

 

Data centers will drive demand for natural gas, TC Energy says

Robert Tuttle, Bloomberg News

The IAD71 Amazon Web Services data center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. Amazon.com Inc. plans to spend almost $150 billion in the coming 15 years on data centers, giving the cloud-computing giant the firepower to handle an expected explosion in demand for artificial intelligence applications and other digital services. , Bloomberg

The growth of power-hungry data centers will send demand soaring for natural gas as more of the fuel is used to generate electricity, according to TC Energy Corp., the largest operator of natural gas pipelines in North America. 

Gas demand for electricity to run data centers will increase by as much as 8 billion cubic feet a day by 2030, Stanley Chapman, TC Energy’s executive vice president and chief operating officer of natural gas pipelines, said in an earnings call. That’s equal to 21 per cent of current U.S. demand for the fuel in electric generation.

Data centers, which power artificial-intelligence technology, are set to give electric utilities the biggest demand jump in a generation. Along with data centers to run AI computing, America’s grid is being tested by new factories and the electrification of everything from vehicles to heat pumps. All of that is poised to keep demand robust for natural gas and other fossil fuels used in power generation. 

The demand growth is prompting TC Energy to reinforce gas-pipeline networks running through states including Virginia and Wisconsin and to increase connections to local distribution companies in those markets. 

“We do see a meaningful load-in growth opportunity and increased demand in coming years due to data centers,” Chapman said.

Installed data center electricity capacity will grow by about 14 gigawatts from 2023 to 2030, equal to about 2 billion cubic feet a day of incremental natural gas demand if fully served by gas-fired power plants, Carson Kearl, who authored an Enverus Intelligence Research report on the subject, said in a May 1 statement. 

“Data center capacity growth will not translate one-to-one into net new load growth,” he said. “Operators will be on the hunt for cheap interties from current industrial consumers.”

 CUTTING NOSE TO SPITE FACE

TransAlta cancels wind power project over new government rules on development

The Canadian Press

A major Alberta utility is cancelling a large wind power project because of new government rules on where such developments can be built.

TransAlta CEO John Kousinioris says the 300-megawatt Riplinger project near Cardston in southern Alberta will no longer proceed.

Kousinioris told a conference call to analysts that the reason for the decision is the provincial government's rules that create a buffer zone around protected areas and block development in what it calls pristine viewscapes.

TransAlta is also placing three other developments on hold as the government goes through a redesign of the province's electricity market. 

It's the second setback this week for low-carbon energy generation in Alberta.

Electricity generator Capital Power announced Wednesday it was cancelling plans for a $2.4-billion carbon capture and storage project for its natural gas facility near Edmonton.

CEO Avik Dey said the cost of the project was too high and the regulatory environment around it too uncertain to justify going ahead.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 3, 2024.

 

Exxon to move tech centre to Houston, shut New Jersey and Sarnia campuses

Kevin Crowley, Bloomberg News

The ExxonMobil Guyana offices at 86 Duke Street in Georgetown, Guyana, on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024. Photographer: Jose A. Alvardo Jr./Bloomberg

Exxon Mobil Corp. plans to establish a single North American research and technology hub at its Houston headquarters, resulting in the closure of campuses in Clinton, New Jersey, and Sarnia in Ontario. 

The closures will affect about 700 employees, with the majority being offered roles in Houston, said Exxon spokeswoman Emily Mir. The moves will be done in phases and will be fully enacted by 2028. 

“We’re excited for our North American technology organizations to be located with our business lines to more effectively develop and commercialize industry-leading technology,” Mir said. “This move will expand our research capabilities and set a foundation for growth well into the future.”

Exxon has spent the last four years streamlining a multitude of business divisions, shedding assets and reducing its workforce as part of a plan to cut US$15 billion of costs by 2027 compared with 2019. It’s currently two-thirds of the way toward reaching that target. 

The company’s Clinton campus used to house the Exxon Mobil Research and Engineering division, which was responsible for much of the oil giant’s patented products over several decades. It also played a leading role in climate research in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

Suncor earns $1.6B in first quarter, breaks all-time oilsands production record

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Suncor Energy Inc. says it earned $1.61 billion in the first three months of 2024, down from $2.05 billion a year earlier.

The Calgary-based energy giant says its first-quarter earnings amount to $1.25 per common share, compared with $1.54 in the first quarter of 2023.

On an adjusted basis, Suncor says its operating earnings of $1.82 billion in the first quarter of 2024 were comparable to $1.81 billion in the prior year's quarter.

The company attributed its results primarily to higher oilsands sales volumes and refinery production, partially offset by lower price realizations and increased oilsands royalties.

Suncor reported record upstream production of 835,000 barrels per day during the quarter, including all-time high oilsands production of 785,000 barrels per day.

The company says it achieved record refined product sales of 581,000 barrels per day, and saw its highest-ever first quarter refining throughput at 455,000 barrels per day with 98 per cent overall refinery utilization.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2024

MEG Energy says Trans Mountain expansion will boost Canadian oil prices 'for years'

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

The recently completed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will boost Canadian oil prices for "years" to come, an executive with oilsands producer MEG Energy Corp. said Tuesday.

"It is great for industry and Canada to have that tremendous asset available," said MEG's vice-president of marketing Erik Alson during a conference call with analysts to discuss the company's first-quarter earnings.

Canadian heavy oil has historically sold at a discount to lighter U.S. crude, in part due to differences in product quality and transportation costs, but also due to a lack of pipeline export capacity that has limited market access for Canadian oil.

At times, that discount has been severe. Rising oilsands production and limited pipeline space in the fall of 2018 caused Canada's heavy oil benchmark price, known as Western Canada Select, to sell at nearly US$50 per barrel below the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate. The government of Alberta ended up curtailing oil production in the province for a time to address the problem.

A similar problem occurred in 2012-2013, prompting then-Alberta premier Alison Redford to blame what she called the "bitumen bubble" for a massive shortfall in government revenues.

A 2020 study by IHS Markit estimated that insufficient pipeline export capacity resulted in US$14 billion in lost value to Canada between 2015 and 2019.

But the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is expected to change things. The expansion, which marked its official opening last week, gives Canadian oil shippers access to an additional 590,000 barrels-per-day of pipeline capacity and opens up new markets for oilsands product in Asia and along the U.S. Pacific Coast. 

MEG is one of the main beneficiaries of the Trans Mountain expansion, with 20,000 barrels per day of contracted capacity on the pipeline.

Prices for Canadian heavy oil increased, and the WCS-WTI differential narrowed, in April in anticipation of the start-up of the pipeline expansion and Alson said Tuesday he expects that to be a long-term trend.

"With this critical infrastructure now complete, we anticipate light-heavy differentials will remain narrow for years," he said.

Oilsands companies have had years to ramp up their production in advance of Trans Mountain coming online, since the pipeline expansion was first proposed a dozen years ago and took more than four years to construct. Many analysts have suggested that the pipeline will quickly be filled, something Alson acknowledged.

"As an industry, we have a history of filling available egress, and I think that will happen again over time," he said. 

"There are various estimates as to when that could occur. We’ve seen (projections) as recent as two years, others within five or six. Our thinking is closer to the outer end of that time frame."

Alson said he does not expect another oil pipeline to be built in Canada. But he said a potential future expansion of Enbridge Inc.'s Mainline pipeline network, which has been expanded many times in its 75-year history, could offer some relief to oil shippers once Trans Mountain is full. 

He said there may also be ways to enhance the efficiency, or "de-bottleneck" other existing pipelines without starting from scratch with new construction.

MEG Energy Corp. said it earned $98 million in its first quarter, up from $81 million during the same quarter last year.

The Calgary-based company's revenues totalled $1.4 billion, down from $1.5 billion a year earlier.

Diluted earnings per share were 36 cents, up from 28 cents. 

Bitumen production averaged about 104,000 barrels per day during the period ended March 31. 

Former chief operating officer Darlene Gates stepped into the chief executive role at MEG on May 1, replacing outgoing CEO Derek Evans.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2024.

Oil begins moving on $34 billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Canada's energy sector as well as the country's main oil-producing province celebrated Wednesday as the long-awaited $34-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion officially came online.

Crown corporation Trans Mountain Corp. issued a statement Wednesday confirming that oil is now moving on the expanded pipeline, which is currently 70 per cent full as crude continues to be added to the new system.

The company said the so-called "Golden Weld," the final piece of construction work required to complete the pipeline, took place April 11 in B.C.'s Fraser Valley, between the communities of Hope and Chilliwack.

It said tanker ships will be able to load oil for delivery to Pacific and Asian markets by mid-May.

“Trans Mountain has demonstrated that challenging, long linear infrastructure can be built in Canada,” said Trans Mountain Corp. CEO Dawn Farrell in the statement. 

“With our project management team and contractors, we were able to build 988 kilometres of new pipeline, 193 kilometres of reactivated pipeline, 12 new pump stations, 19 new storage tanks, and three new berths at Westridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby."

"This is a great day for Canada, to get this pipeline up and running," said Jon McKenzie, CEO of Cenovus Energy Inc. on a conference call with analysts Wednesday morning.

"The people of Canada are going to see the benefit for a long period of time in terms of increased taxes and royalties and the like."

Alberta premier Danielle Smith also hailed the milestone, saying in a news release that the expanded pipeline means "a new era of prosperity and economic growth."

"The completion of TMX is monumental for Alberta," Smith said. 

"For Alberta this is a game-changer. The world needs more reliably and sustainably sourced Alberta energy, not less."

The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project involved twinning an existing pipeline that runs from Alberta to the B.C. coast. The expansion increases the Trans Mountain system's shipping capacity from 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day, and will help open up global export markets for Canadian oil.

The increased capacity is also expected to help improve the price Canadian oil companies receive for their product.

But while the project's completion is being hailed by Canada's energy sector as a win, it did not come easily. 

The pipeline expansion was first proposed in 2012 by Kinder Morgan Canada, which encountered so much environmental and Indigenous opposition that it ultimately threatened to scuttle the project. 

The federal government purchased the pipeline for $4.5 billion in 2018 in an effort to get the project over the finish line. Once construction did start, the project ran into numerous delays and budget overruns, with its price tag spiralling over the course of four years to an eye-popping $34 billion.

Cenovus' McKenzie said Wednesday he didn't want to taint "a great day" with too much talk of the project's challenges. But he suggested the difficulties encountered by Trans Mountain are indicative of a broader problem.

"I think as a nation we suffer — and I don't think I'm saying anything that people don't already know — from lower and decreasing productivity, and we need to find ways to get major projects built to get infrastructure built to the benefit of all Canadians," McKenzie said.

"And I think we would all realize that 13 years is far too long for a project of this national importance to get built."

The cost and challenges associated with building Trans Mountain also cast a shadow over its ultimate sale. The federal government has indicated it does not wish to be the long-term owner of the pipeline, but the expansion project's ballooning price tag means experts say the government will likely have to take a significant writedown if it is able to sell the asset.

The Trans Mountain saga has also left some wondering whether an oil pipeline will ever again be built in this country. 

Industry watchers say the Trans Mountain expansion will reach its maximum capacity within just a handful of years, thanks to increased oil output by Canadian producers. But the time, cost and regulatory burden associated with building a similar project would be major investment barriers.

"It is increasingly difficult to build pipelines in this country, and it wouldn't surprise me if this was the last pipeline," McKenzie said.

"But the reality is we have a tremendous resource here in Canada and we produce our oil in my view, more sustainably than probably anywhere else in the world. And if we were in a position where, as a nation, we decided to take that to market, we should be building more pipelines."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2024.

 

Alta. oil and gas company fined for violating methane rules

BNN Bloomberg

The Alberta Energy Regulator's mobile incident command. , Handout/Alberta Energy Regulator

The Alberta Energy Regulator has fined a Calgary-based junior oil and gas producer for failing to meet its fugitive emission and methane reporting requirements.

The regulator says it began investigating Tallahassee Exploration Inc. in 2022 and has determined the company broke Alberta's methane emission rules on two counts, with both violations occurring in 2021.

The AER also says Tallahassee provided false or misleading information by resubmitting information from the 2020 reporting period and representing it as data from the 2021 reporting period.

The company has been ordered to pay a $191,885 fine.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and is the second-largest cause of global warming, after carbon dioxide. It is the main component in natural gas and is also a byproduct of oil drilling.

Fugitive emissions is a term that refers to the unintentional or unwanted release of harmful gases into the atmosphere as a result of oil and gas drilling activity.

Canada has set a target of reducing oil and gas methane emissions by at least 75 per cent from 2012 levels by 2030. New proposed federal rules for the oil and gas sector would prohibit the routine controlled release of methane — a practice known as venting and flaring — from oil and natural gas operations, as well as require companies to invest in enhanced leak detection and repair. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 7, 2024.

 

Young Canadians feel poorer in warning sign for economy, Trudeau

Jay Zhao-Murray, Bloomberg News

Canadians are feeling gloomy about their personal finances — and Generation Z is the gloomiest of all.

The Nanos Pocketbook Index, a measure of how people perceive their personal finances and job security, fell to 50 last week, matching its April 2020 low. It’s one component of the broader Bloomberg Nanos Canadian Confidence Index, which also gauges the public’s expectations about the economy.

Young people are driving the pocketbook index lower. For respondents aged 18 to 29 — who are mostly members of Gen Z, along with the youngest millennials — the index fell to 40, the lowest recorded in its 16-year history.

The youth index has been in free-fall since the last week of March, down 17 points in just five weeks. The recent sharp deterioration is worse than in April 2020, the depths of the pandemic recession, when Canada’s gross domestic product fell by 10.7 per cent.

Just 11 per cent of respondents of all ages said their personal finances have improved over the past year, the lowest going back to the inception of the Bloomberg Nanos survey in 2008, while 50 per cent say their finances have gotten worse.

In a technical sense, Canada has avoided a recession so far. That’s mostly due to explosive migration-led population growth, which has kept the economic pie from shrinking. The slices have grown smaller, however. On a per-capita basis, the economy has shrunk three per cent since September 2022. 

Signs of strain among young people are especially visible in the labour market, where job gains have not kept up with the surging population. Youth unemployment has risen about four times faster than unemployment for all age groups.

In March, Canada’s unemployment rate was 6.1 per cent, up 1.1 percentage points since December 2022. Over the same period, unemployment among 15 to 29 year olds was up 4.3 percentage points to 10.9 per cent. New data for April will be released on Friday.

Financial difficulties among young people are a broader warning sign for the Canadian economy. And they don’t do anything to boost the country’s meager birth rate, since affordability concerns discourage many young couples from starting families. 

Canada’s lack of affordability, particularly in the housing market, has led young people to turn their backs on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The under-30 crowd now largely favours the Conservative Party, a historical aberration.

Trudeau tried to win those voters back with his youth-focused April budget, but his polling numbers have continued to decline.

Methodology

Every week, Nanos surveys about 250 Canadians for their views on personal finances, job security, the economy and real estate prices. Bloomberg publishes four-week rolling averages of the 1,000 telephone responses.

The poll has a margin of error of about three percentage points, 19 times out of 20. The range of error may be wider when talking about subsets of the overall population because the survey sample size is smaller. 

 

Competition Bureau launches inquiry into Lululemon over 'greenwashing' allegations

The Canadian Press

Canada's Competition Bureau has launched an inquiry into Vancouver-based Lululemon following a complaint from members of an environmental group.

Stand.earth had asked the bureau to investigate the athletic-wear giant in February, alleging Lululemon is misleading customers about its climate impacts.

The group issued a statement earlier this year saying Lululemon has been using the slogan "Be Planet" as part of its "impact agenda" released in 2020, but the company's own reports reveal a doubling of greenhouse-gas emissions since then.

A spokeswoman for the Competition Bureau confirmed Monday that it has launched an investigation into "alleged deceptive marketing practices."

The bureau says there is no conclusion of wrongdoing at this time. 

A statement from Lululemon says the company is "confident" the investigation will confirm its representations to the public are "accurate and well-supported."

The company is committed to co-operating on any next steps, it adds.

The statement says Lululemon is working to help "create a garment industry that is more sustainable and addresses the serious impacts of climate change."

"This work is far from complete," it says.

Lululemon's 2022 impact report says its products and actions help lead the industry "toward a climate-stable future where nature and people thrive."

The report says the company aims to meet a series of climate action targets by 2030, including a 60-per-cent reduction in emissions intensity for "Scope 3" operations, which encompass the making and shipping of clothing globally.

But Lululemon's reports, cited by Stand.earth, show total emissions for that category rose to nearly 1.7 million tonnes, up from about 830,000 tonnes in 2020.

Those "Scope 3" activities represent 99.7 per cent of the company's total carbon footprint, the 2022 report says.

A statement earlier this year said Lululemon's "decarbonization plan" aims to help it become a "net-zero company" by 2050 with a 90-per-cent reduction in emissions.

Luluelmon has so far met its goals to power its own facilities with renewable electricity while cutting those emissions by 60 per cent, it said.

The company recognizes that the majority of its carbon footprint comes from emissions "within the broader supply chain," the statement said. 

Lululemon has contributed $10 million to a fund aimed at accelerating climate action in the global apparel industry, it added.

A statement from Rachel Kitchin, senior corporate climate campaigner at Stand.earth, notes that Lululemon is providing Team Canada's kit for the upcoming Paris Olympics and Paralympics, representing the country on the world stage.

"Our athletes deserve to be at their absolute best in a brand that aligns with their values as Canadians, and not misled by deceptive and greenwashing marketing."