Quote:
Originally Posted by SOSS
My issue with both pipelines is that the risk far outweighs any benefits that BC will ever realize. When alternative technologies are making some real headway not only in the west but also places like China, oil - especially heavy oil - has a limited shelf life.
Another big issue I take particularly with Kinder Morgan's project is Kinder Morgan. These guys are tax evasion geniuses spawned from the likes of Enron. Remember those guys...?
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Not trying to denigrate your post, but the attitudes of the ABers on here vis-a-vis BC LNG is akin to your attitude about AB oil/bitumen pipelines to the BC coast.
Firstly, the Northern Gateway pipeline is dead. They will never be able to meet their 209 conditions imposed by the NEB - esp. regarding FNs and requirements thereto. Even newly minted AB premier Prentice recognizes that as he was involved, until recently, talking to these same FNs involving NGP. As an aside, Prentice is likely to be AB's best premier since Lougheed FWIW.
BTW, the NE quadrant of BC (where the Montney, Horn River, Liard, and Cordova Embayment natural gas basins are extant) are under Treaty 8 since 1899, the same Treaty 8 that covers the northern half of AB and the oil sands.
Unlike that region, the rest of BC to the northwest coast is not under treaty and Enbridge fricked up their relations with those FNs as well as coastal FNs and corresponding oil tanker traffic. Get them on the wrong side, lose their trust, and you are finished.
OTOH, the twinning of the Trans Mountain Pipeline is a different matter. A section was already twinned a decade plus ago through Jasper National Park and neighbouring Mount Robson Provincial park in BC. An additional section north of Kamloops was also twinned concurrently.
Unlike the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, KM's proposed twinning is a "brownfield" project. IOW, twinning an adjacent pipeline of ~ 60 years. And most FNs along this corridor have already apparently signed onto benefit agreements with KM. Completely different situ than compared to Enbridge's NGP. Many FNs know that oil tanker trains are already moving from AB to the south west coast via the Fraser Canyon. Which abuts the huge salmon-bearing Fraser River. And train derailments thereto would be inherently risky.
Pipeline, OTOH, is the safest mode of transport esp. considering that BC is criss-crossed with ~100,000 km of NG/oil pipeline already. BTW, rail has common carrier provisions and cannot be legally prevented from carrying oil. Full stop. And I also certainly support the notion that AB should have the inherent right to transport its resources to tidewater, which is federal jurisdiction as well.
Not much, if any, opposition in interior BC, coastal BC until one hits its terminus - Burnaby. And Burnaby's mayor Corrigan has always been an oddball within Metro Vancouver. KM was undergoing drill samples on Burnaby Mountain to tunnel under same instead of going over - the original routing.
And, of course, hard-core enviro nutters showed up to protest. Bet that made an impression upon ABers. Problem is that they showed up in their cars. And had gas generators, to boot, at their encampment. All powered by fuel from the existing KM 'batched' pipeline.
And the BC media and Twitter was snickering at their hypocrisy. And the folk who got arrested were documented as mostly the same folk who got arrested at Van City Olympics 2010, the following so-called Occupy Movement, etc. They are called "Rent a Crowd" out here. Even one of the protest organizers convinced his 80-year old mother to get arrested in order to make an MSM impression. Pathetic.
In any event the Insights West opinion poll (from last week) of BCers attitudes to KM's TMP and whether it should proceed:
Definitely: 14%
Probably: 25%
Subtotal: 39%
Not Sure: 19%
Subtotal: 58%
Probably Not: 21% (the soft no crowd)
Subtotal: 79%
Definitely Not: 21%
And that 21% represents all of the protesters, enviro groups etc. The small minority as usual that reaps the MSM coverage.
At the end of the day, Enbridge's NGP is dead. Not so KM's TMP. In fact, I would financially wager that it gets built. And I don't personally gamble.
PS. Based upon the BC govt's so-called 5 conditions on risky AB bitumen pipelines, $1 per barrel per day to BC coffers on an expanded ~900,000 barrel per day TM pipeline would be adequate financial compensation for the inherent risk methinks. From a tariff upon Kinder Morgan. Not from AB itself.
Would be about $300 million+ per annum. AB shippers would still receive a much higher per barrel price than through existing congested pipeline channels/rail alternatives to its only market - the U.S. (important U.S. Gulf coast in particular). A win-win situ.
PPS. The current KM TMP is over-subscribed by about 60% to 70% very month. Shows the high demand and lack of existing capacity thereto.
PPPS. Of the current tankers leaving existing KM TMP terminus in Burnaby, their destinations:
1. California: 80%
2. U.S. Gulf Coast: 10%
3. China: 10%
Also remember that KM's TMP has a pipeline connector to WA State at Sumas, BC in the Fraser Valley. Connects to WA State oil refineries. Alaskan oil imports have been declining quite rapidly and WA State and Cali oil refineries are also looking for new oil feedstock.