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Where is Canada's/BC's Heritage Fund?
Fri, 2013-02-08 12:57
#1
Where is Canada's/BC's Heritage Fund?
Wed, 2013-02-20 11:31
#2
The Making of a Natural Gas Glut
Wall Street drives the shale boom like it did the housing mortgage scandal: report.
'SHALE AND WALL STREET': SEVEN CONCLUSIONS
Deborah Rogers' report for the Post-Carbon Institute makes these assertions:
1. Wall Street promoted the shale gas drilling frenzy, which resulted in prices lower than the cost of production and thereby profited [enormously] from mergers & acquisitions and other transactional fees.
2. U.S. shale gas and shale oil reserves have been overestimated by a minimum of 100 per cent and by as much as 400 to 500 per cent by operators, according to actual well production data filed in various states.
3. Shale oil wells are following the same steep decline rates and poor recovery efficiency observed in shale gas wells.
4. The price of natural gas has been driven down largely due to severe overproduction in meeting financial analysts' targets of production growth for share appreciation, coupled and exacerbated by imprudent leverage and thus a concomitant need to produce to meet debt service.
5. Due to extreme levels of debt, stated proved undeveloped reserves (PUDs) may not have been in compliance with SEC [Securities and Exchange Commission] rules at some shale companies because of the threat of collateral default for those operators.
6. Industry is demonstrating reticence to engage in further shale investment, abandoning pipeline projects, IPOs and joint venture projects in spite of public rhetoric proclaiming shales to be a panacea for U.S. energy policy.
7. Exportation is being pursued for the arbitrage between the domestic and international prices in an effort to shore up ailing balance sheets invested in shale assets.
Wed, 2013-02-20 16:49
#3
What's the matter with our short-sighted provincial and federal politicans who are not creating a BC Heritage Fund with these massive oil and gas discoveries in BC for future generations.
Has anybody ever heard of Norway?
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Wow!
Just looking at the front page of today's Vancouver Sun's screaming headline:
"Industry calls for tax breaks to fuel LNG development
Savings could cost taxpayers $2 billion over 7 years"
The Canadian oil and gas industry is asking Ottawa for subsidies that could be worth $2 billion in tax savings to encourage the development of liquefied natural gas plants in British Columbia.
Giving the industry a tax break would make the LNG export industry more competitive and influence investment decisions favourably, David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, argued in an appearance last fall before the standing committee on finance.
The committee was holding pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2013 federal budget, expected to be delivered next month.
It has since recommended "that the federal government expeditiously encourage and support the development of infrastructure in relation to liquefied natural gas exports."
Collyer said the industry wants to see a change in the tax treatment of liquefied natural gas plants regarding capital cost allowances.
LNG plants are considered to be part of the gas transmission process, and receive an eight-per-cent-per-year capital cost allowance.
CAPP wants them to be reclassified as manufacturing plants, which would receive a 30-percent capital cost allowance when they are built.
The change would mean they could write off 90 per cent of their investments in seven years, rather than the 27 years it takes under current tax regulations, Collyer said.
In his submission to the finance committee, Collyer said that changing the rules for the industry would "positively influence near-term final investment decisions for LNG liquefaction facilities."
In an interview Thursday, CAPP spokesman Travis Davies said the industry needs the tax concession because it sees an urgency in getting the plants built to take advantage of favourable market conditions.
It is competing with countries such as the U.S. and Australia, where the after-tax cost of spending is less.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=newssearch&cd=1&ve...
Wed, 2013-02-20 16:54
#4
Very well said!
The Vancouver Sun's extreme,biases, of course the Globe and Mail's absurd biases, basically all of Canada's mainstream press - at least their news departments, make this BCer want to puke.
I know they are not perfect, far from it, but it sure would be nice to have an equavelent to the UK's "The Guardian" in Canada.
Too bad! 
A Tale of Two Provinces: B.C. NDP and Alberta Wild Rosehip Tea Party show why opposition matters
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2013/02/tale-two-provinces-...