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
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“The oilsands is migrating to fewer players who can drive efficiencies through economies of scale.” — Steve Laut, Canadian Natural Resources president
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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
