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Slow oil sands growth: Lougheed
News Articles | Canwest News Service | Dan Healing | July 15, 2009
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The Alberta government should take advantage of the slowdown in oilsands development to regulate the pace of growth, thus reducing costs throughout the province for a host of other businesses, former Alberta premier Peter Lougheed says.
Speaking at the opening of a five-day international engineering conference in Calgary, Mr. Lougheed said the frenetic pace of oilsands development has hurt the province by making everything more expensive.
“The oilsands have created in our province, because of the rapid growth that has occurred in the past decade, a very high-cost economy,” Mr. Lougheed said. “That means we have a built-in cost factor here in our province that is very difficult for people in other businesses, and I see a growing pressure on the current government to revisit this issue.”
He conceded that his opinion is “in the minority,” but added the province is well aware of his position on the subject.
Mr. Lougheed told reporters later that the government should allow only one surface-mining project at a time—but that the generally lower-cost underground bitumen-recovery projects could proceed at a higher pace.
“We, essentially, should have one mining project at a time — the in situ is a different situation — and what the past policy of the Alberta government has been is to have a number of projects going on concurrently. What I’ve been suggesting … is there should be one project done and completed before the next project starts.
“That will be hard to accomplish in the short term, because so many commitments have been made, but I would hope, in due course, the new government in Alberta would move themselves more to a more uniform development.
“I think public opinion is changing, and there’s a possibility that, when the current slowdown comes to an end, they may reassess their view of that. But I have no sense that they’re going to do that.”
The oilsands hold an estimated 173 billion barrels of crude, second in size only to Saudi Arabia’s 264-billion-barrel reserve, according to Alberta Energy, which estimates exploiting Alberta’s reserves will take at least 100 years.
The province has approved at least five new multi-billion-dollar mining projects, and there are applications in the works for at least five more.
About $100-billion worth of mining and in-situ oilsands projects have been shelved since last year, although the investment climate is starting to thaw.
Tagged with: alberta, economy, calgary, peter lougheed
