BOE Report

Indonesia to rejoin OPEC after 7-year hiatus in move to forge closer ties with oil exporters

JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia's energy ministry said Friday the country will rejoin the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries this year to forge a closer relationship with oil suppliers.I Gusti Nyoman Wiratmadja Pudja, director-general of oil and gas at the ministry, said Indonesia will reactivate its membership in November after all OPEC members approved its application to rejoin the oil cartel at a meeting in Vienna last week.The Southeast Asian country left the group in 2008 after [Read more]

Malaysia-led group gives conditional approval for B.C. LNG project

VANCOUVER - A Malaysia-led consortium has become the first in British Columbia to announce conditional approval of a liquefied natural gas project, a major step forward for the Liberal government as it stakes its future on development of the industry.Pacific NorthWest LNG, which is controlled by Malaysian energy giant Petronas, said Thursday it will confirm a final investment decision on the $36-billion project in northwest B.C. subject to two conditions.The first condition is approval of the [Read more]

Alberta’s energy minister defends key staffer who worked for anti-pipeline group

EDMONTON - Alberta's energy minister is defending her new chief of staff despite his recent work for an anti-pipeline lobby group.Marg McCuaig-Boyd said Graham Mitchell worked briefly earlier this year for Vancouver-based LeadNow but strictly in an administrative capacity.She said Mitchell, while listed as executive director and registered lobbyist for LeadNow, did not do any lobbying and is in lockstep with the Alberta NDP's policy to grow and improve market access for oil."He was just doing [Read more]

Big Oil’s push for a carbon tax a pragmatic move, not just PR, experts say

CALGARY - It may seem odd to hear Big Oil tout a policy that would make it costlier to do business.But experts say recent calls for a carbon tax have pragmatic — not just public relations — motivations.Michal Moore, an energy economist at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, said savvy companies see a higher price of carbon as "inevitable" and want to influence how those policies take shape.That's why the likes of Suncor Energy (TSX:SU) boss Steve Williams have been publicly [Read more]

Risks to Canada’s financial stability inched higher amid oil slump: central bank

OTTAWA - The Bank of Canada governor tried to offer calming words Thursday about the disappointing retreat of the country's economy over the first three months of 2015, saying the performance was only a little worse than its projection.But it remains to be seen how that unexpected contraction might influence Stephen Poloz's forecasts for the rest of the year.Poloz made his first public remarks since a recent data release showed Canada's economy shrank in the first quarter at an annualized rate [Read more]

Pilot project to transform oil industry waste water into geothermal energy

CALGARY - In a few weeks a generator in North Dakota will fire up, powered by nothing more than waste water from an oil well.The pilot project is designed to show that it's possible to generate geothermal electricity from the boiling water that comes out of the wells.The concept is something Alison Thompson, managing director of the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association, has long been calling for in Canada's oilpatch."We've been advocating for many years to do what we'll call the hot [Read more]

100 Canadian, U.S. academics call for oilsands moratorium

A group of 100 leading Canadian and U.S. scientists has issued an urgent call for a moratorium on new oilsands development and listed 10 reasons why no more projects should be permitted."I believe we have a duty to speak up," said Mark Jaccard, an energy economist at B.C.'s Simon Fraser University who spent more than a year drafting a letter to make sure it was scientifically sound.Jaccard was a co-author of a 2014 essay in a scientific journal that made a similar argument. But the current [Read more]

Saskatchewan courts oil and gas investment amid Alberta royalty ruckus

CALGARY - If energy companies are skittish about investing in Alberta, they're welcome to set up shop next door, Saskatchewan's economy minister said Wednesday.Bill Boyd said he's been watching the political debate in neighbouring Alberta over the newly elected NDP government's plans to review oil and gas royalties.Boyd said he's been hearing "a fair bit of concern" from companies at the Global Petroleum Show, a massive exhibition in Calgary this week with some 50,000 attendees from around the [Read more]

National Energy Board chair to make safety inspection reports public

VANCOUVER - The chairman of the National Energy Board is vowing to make pipeline inspection reports public in his latest effort to increase transparency at the embattled regulator.Peter Watson said the reports will be published online beginning in September, in order to inform the public that the board continues to monitor pipelines even after they are built."If a project is constructed like the existing Trans Mountain line, we have all these responsibilities to ensure its safety on an ongoing [Read more]

AltaGas commits to LNG terminal by 2018, challenges international report

CALGARY - The CEO of AltaGas Ltd. says his company is on track to building Canada's first liquefied natural gas export terminal by 2018, challenging an international report that said no such facility will be built in the country by 2020. "We think we'll prove them wrong in this decade," David Cornhill said Monday in an interview following a report last week by the International Energy Agency. Cornhill said the company is making progress on plans for the Douglas Channel LNG terminal in [Read more]