CALGARY – A massive deal that would see Royal Dutch Shell and Marathon Oil sell Alberta oilsands assets to Canadian Natural Resources elicited a wide range of responses:
“The pipeline situation didn’t play into our thinking at all. We believe that we will have adequate pipeline capacity. This was a decision based on, as I said earlier, on our strategy around simplifying the portfolio, focusing in on parts of the business where we thought we could reach globally competitive scale.” — Michael Crothers, Shell Canada president
———
“The oilsands is migrating to fewer players who can drive efficiencies through economies of scale.” — Steve Laut, Canadian Natural Resources president
———
“Shell is reading the writing on the wall, and Canadian politicians would be wise to take note: There isn’t much of a future for bitumen in a low-carbon world. Fortunately, Canada can be a green energy leader and the sooner we get on with it, the less disruption we’ll see to our economy and communities.” — Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist, Greenpeace Canada
———
“It speaks to the cost factors that are being exacerbated by bad public policy and bad regulations at both provincial and federal levels of government, which is driving away investment.” — Shannon Stubbs, federal Conservative deputy critic for natural resources
———
“Alberta remains and will continue to remain the best jurisdiction to invest in when it comes to our oil and gas. … CNRL and Shell both support a price on carbon and realize this is what we need to do worldwide.” — Deron Bilous, Alberta’s minister of economic development
———
“Let’s be absolutely clear that Shell was supportive of carbon pricing, that this was a business decision by Shell and that companies are going to make decisions. A Canadian company is the purchaser and Shell’s still going to remain here.” — Catherine McKenna, federal environment minister