Oilsands suck dollars from cleaner oil and gas

There’s a giant sucking noise emanating from northeast Alberta that gets louder as oil prices rise.

Called the Athabasca Tar Sands, its rapid development is draining imagination from the Stelmach government, flexibility from labour markets and diversification from Alberta’s economy. It has also sucked Edmonton into a hopeless global environmental confrontation.
Alberta is committed to unrestricted oilsands development and to defending it against growing opposition. Good. The world needs the oil.

But not at the expense of the rest of Alberta’s oil business. Determined to increase its share of production revenue and maintain aggressive oilsands development, the province’s impending royalty rates are much too high.

That there are problems in Alberta’s oilpatch is surely incomprehensible to Joe Public. With everything hydrocarbon fetching record prices, continued whining from oil guys like me must be annoying. But Stelmach’s new royalties will soon make Alberta the least attractive place to develop conventional oil and natural gas in North America. Alberta has put most of its energy eggs in the oilsands basket. This will be the most damaging “unintended consequence” of all.

Calgary Herald