The push is on convince federal and provincial leaders to give Canadian oil and gas industry the pipelines it needs to reach more markets.
Canadian Association of Oilwell Drilling Contractors is taking its Oil Respect campaign on the road and the first stop is Red Deer at a Red Deer & District Chamber of Commerce luncheon at Red Deer Golf & Country Club on Thursday.
“If the Canadian energy industry shuts down today, the world would still demand oil and gas. But the problem is the world would consume it from the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Angola. All these countries have no environmental standards, no labour standards, no respect for human life and that is something we all should be concerned about,” said CAODC president Mark Scholz who will speak in Red Deer.
“Canadian responsible crude should be given the opportunity to compete with crude that has no standards. We can be so proud of our industry. But if we want this industry to succeed, then we have to get it to tide water, we have to get it eastern Canadian refineries so we can get Canadians off crude that is coming from those corrupt regimes.”
Scholz said the industry can’t wait and needs to expand the capacity of Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Pipeline and build the Northern Gateway Pipeline to Canada’s West Coast, as well as develop the Energy East Pipeline.
“I would say we would need all of them. I think all of them stand alone on the merit they provide.”
Delaying the pipelines is also causing the investment community to begin to question whether Canada is a destination for future capital, he said.
When it comes to oil prices, Scholz said Canadians are getting shortchanged.
“We have one market basically, 97 per cent goes to the United States and the United States right now is producing at incredibly high rates so they don’t really need Canadian crude and that’s why we’re seeing tremendous discounts for our products.”
Only three per cent of Canadian crude is exported to other international markets.
“We want to have a more diversified market so more of our products can go to places like Asia which is a market that is growing and commands much higher pricing than we get today.”
Scholz said not getting full value means fewer jobs and fewer revenue dollars for government to hire nurses and teachers and build schools and hospitals for Canadians.
He said oil field families and family businesses are being turned upside down from “low oil prices, bad public policy and misinformed criticism.”
“Opponents of oil and gas would argue that the industry is a laggard when it comes to environmental performance. That is absolutely false. Alberta was the first oil producing jurisdiction in North America to put a price on carbon in 2007 and now more than 80 per cent of Canadians live under a carbon pricing system.”
He said the climate leadership plan proposed by the Notley government in 2015 adds additional structure, higher cost for carbon on Alberta producers and a 100 megaton cap on oil sand emissions.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com