BOE Report

A winking president teases Republicans, and the Keystone XL pipeline

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama delivered a dig at the Keystone XL pipeline and drew a politically revealing standing ovation from Democrats during his state of the union address Tuesday.It illustrated the political headwinds now confronting the Canadian oil-infrastructure project: The president voiced his increasingly blunt disdain, and a vocal cheering section from his party roared in approval.Obama took his latest shot from the biggest political stage of the year, the annual [Read more]

Oil services giant Baker Hughes to lay off 7,000 workers

HOUSTON - Oil services company Baker Hughes Inc. will lay off about 7,000 workers as it prepares for a downturn in orders because of the plunge in crude prices, the company said Tuesday.The layoffs represent about an 11 per cent cut to the 62,000-plus workers Baker Hughes says it employs worldwide.The announcement came in a conference call after the Houston-based company exceeded analysts' estimates with a record $663 million in net income in the fourth quarter of 2014, more than double its [Read more]

B.C. premier wants more details on spill-response plans for proposed pipeline

VANCOUVER - Oil pipeline builder Kinder Morgan says it is more than willing to share its entire spill-response plan directly with the British Columbia government as it seeks approval for a proposed $5.4-billion pipeline-expansion project.While the energy giant raised concerns over disclosing personal, security or commercially sensitive information, Premier Christy Clark demanded on Tuesday that more details of the safety plan be made public through the National Energy Board."There's always going [Read more]

With Nebraska route cleared, TransCanada takes steps to acquire land for Keystone XL pipeline

LINCOLN, Neb. - TransCanada (TSX:TRP) is moving to acquire the remaining land in Nebraska needed to build its controversial Keystone XL pipeline after the state's high court earlier this month removed a major legal barrier for the planned route.Officials of the Calgary-based company said Tuesday they've filed paperwork in nine counties to acquire access to the remaining land needed to construct, operate and maintain the controversial $8-billion pipeline, which is in its seventh year of [Read more]

Beyond Fort McMurray, oilpatch country feeling the pinch from low crude

CALGARY - If low oil prices stick around much longer, the operations manager at Lac La Biche Transport Ltd. says he may have to lay off workers.Kevin Warawa says business is down by about a quarter compared with the same time a year ago and oilsands operators that hire his company to haul equipment in northeastern Alberta are pushing for rates to be cut by 20 to 25 per cent."Some of them cancelled projects completely. Some of the other customers said that they won't be getting back to production [Read more]

What could Canada do to mute U.S. opposition to Keystone? Nothing, opponents say

WASHINGTON - The American environmental organizations fighting the Keystone XL pipeline say there's no climate-change plan Canada could possibly adopt that would make them back down.Multiple groups contacted this week dismissed an idea often heard in Canada — that a more ambitious climate policy by the federal government might have influenced the Keystone outcome.They said there's no carbon tax too high, cap-and-trade ceiling too low, or climate plan too punishing on greenhouse-gas emissions [Read more]

Keystone XL pipeline opponents file 2 new lawsuits to challenge project in Nebraska

LINCOLN, Neb. - Opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline in Nebraska have filed two new lawsuits over the proposed route, after the state's Supreme Court recently tossed a previous legal challenge.Landowners in Holt and York counties filed lawsuits Friday against pipeline developer TransCanada to stop the Canadian company from using eminent domain power to gain access to their land.Their attorney, Dave Domina, says the lawsuits closely resemble the claim the court dismissed. But he says this time [Read more]

Rickford fetes startup of U.S. pipelines, but says more outlets needed

CALGARY - Canada's natural resources minister was in Texas on Friday to celebrate the opening of two new pipelines that will increase the flow of Alberta crude to the U.S., but said it's "imperative" to diversify beyond that market as the United States becomes more energy self-sufficient.Speaking to reporters by teleconference from the end-point of the newly expanded Seaway pipeline, Greg Rickford said the completion of that project, combined with the recently finished Flanagan South pipeline to [Read more]

Red ink is white knight: Alberta’s Prentice says deficits to solve oil crisis

EDMONTON - Premier Jim Prentice says low oil prices have put Alberta's economy on a razor's edge and the province needs to embrace budget deficits to avoid disaster."We are actually warned by economists that to try to deal with this too quickly could actually trip the province into a recession and make matters worse," Prentice told reporters Friday in a conference call from Houston."So there may, to some extent, be a need to operate at deficits which are acceptable."Prentice has previously [Read more]

Joe Oliver won’t talk about Alberta sales tax; says people are taxed too much

CALGARY - Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver says Canadians are already taxed too much and his government is looking at ways to lower taxes rather than raise them.Despite that position, Oliver says he won't comment on Alberta Premier Jim Prentice musing that he might have to consider a sales tax as the province struggles to deal with low oil prices. "These are decisions that the provincial government will make. I don't have any comment on that directly," Oliver told reporters in Calgary on [Read more]