The Canadian Federal Election will probably be October 14th

[Flubber]

Originally posted by notyoueither




As I said, if the oil companies want to play hard ball, threaten to take there balls and go home, **** 'em. Let's see if they all actually do it.

I wanted to address this one again. I always find it amusing when an oil company makes a statement that if royalties go up that their activity level will go down and people act like its a threat.

Its not. To oil company employees its a statement of the obvious but its probably not obvious to people outside the industry who are influenced bvy the high price of oil. The bigger oil players want to make sure people understand the impacts before the fundamentals of the industry are changed. Do they hope to influence and keep profiits up ?-- Absolutely-- last I checked thats what businesses do.

I doubt you will see anything like you cite (threats, ultimatums). The oil companies I have worked for are brutally mathematical in the assessment of projects-- They don't reject Alberta because they get mad at the government. Instead they just add the new royalties into their expected IRR calculations and the best projects still get done.

I have my bias, obviously. I want my company to do well and financially benefit if our stock price rises (damn US meltdown). So I do see things from an oil company perspective.

[notyoueither]

Flubber, Encana tried the fear campaign. They blustered about cut backs due to the royalties review.

They forgot to mention they had already planned the movement of activity due to internal economies. They are in gas, and gas has a very low price, so big surprise they shut down production and exploration in already played areas.

Yes, there is some threat and bluster coming from the industry.

I am not unsympathetic to the petro company POV. Those companies write a lot of the cheques that are cashed in local businesses like mine, and they have for years.

However, when I consider that the Province has realised very lilttle revenue from the oil sands as of this date, and the pressure put on the people of this province to develop them thus far, and the price of oil has not been $40 for some time now...

The oil companies can shut the **** up and pay a fair dollar for the oil, or they can shut the **** down and eventually have their property nationalised due to disuse for all I care.

This is rediculous. The people of Alberta have essentially paid the whole shot for the development of Syncrude, and all we've had to show for it is swollen cities, higher crime, poorer health and education systems, and now threats. Yes, Flubber, they are threats.

If you ask us to pay a larger fraction of what we'd have to pay to Norway, we'll do an early '80s on you. Heh.

**** 'em!

[Asher]

See, I told you it wasn't Harper's personal opinion necessarily.

http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/508742

[Flubber]

NYE

Obviously we disagree. I believe that when an oil company is asked what an impact will be of something and then answers truthfully, it is not a "threat".

[Flubber]

Wow asher

Copying a speech of the Australian PM? Assuming its true , I wonder did Harper know? Or perhaps he was a victim of a lazy speechwriter that plagarised freely?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Flubber
Wow asher

Copying a speech of the Australian PM? Assuming its true , I wonder did Harper know? Or perhaps he was a victim of a lazy speechwriter that plagarised freely?

It's not copied. The majority is original content.

But it is also very obvious lines were lifted, sometimes verbatim:

Comparison doc:

http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/080930_harper_howard_e.pdf

[snoopy369]

Wait, is Harper the liberal or the conservative?

[Asher]

Conservative

[snoopy369]

Ahh, that's what I thought. The liberal site was pointing it out, not the actual record of his speech.

[Asher]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Ahh, that's what I thought. The liberal site was pointing it out, not the actual record of his speech.

The source of the speech is Hansard, which is the official parliamentary record keeper in Canada. The Liberals are just citing it, and they're making a lot of noise in campaign materials on their website.

[snoopy369]

I was just confused by the www.liberal.ca address for the link, that's all. Too early in the morning.

[Asher]

It gets more interesting.

The Conservatives are reminding people that Dion plagiarized from David Suzuki: http://stevejanke.com/archives/195448.php

[Victor Galis]

Originally posted by Asher

No, Alberta increased royalties which caused a lot of controversy at the time. It's not explicitly a tax, but in reality it kind of is.

Harper cut the corporate tax federally, the NDP wants to repeal it then increase it.

Liberal platform seems to call for a 1% decrease in the corporate tax as part of the Green Shift. (I don't know if there's another cut somewhere.)

AS an attempt to increase government revenues, I believe the royalty increase will fail. It will succeed in that government will take a larger proportion of the hydrocarbons that are produced but it will also likely slow activity in the province somewhat. Many might actually applaud a little bit of a slow down.

To be fair, if long-term trends are considered, it might be most profitable to not extract oil now and keep it for when it's really in short supply.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Victor Galis
Liberal platform seems to call for a 1% decrease in the corporate tax as part of the Green Shift. (I don't know if there's another cut somewhere.)

1% is nothing, especially comparing to the astronomical increase in the new taxes they'd have to pay under the Green Shift...

The reason that they can give "business" a 1% cut is because a small portion of the businesses will be paying that 1% for everyone else. These are businesses in Alberta, for the most part.

Part of the reason the Green Shaft isn't well received is because Dion keeps talking about how it's all about TAX CUTS and making "BIG POLLUTERS PAY". Voters know it's a lot of money that has to come from somewhere, but Dion refuses to say where from exactly. It might be in his best interest to flat-out admit most of it will come from Alberta, that'd help him out east but not help him on national unit...

The people in Alberta already know this, it's everyone else who thinks the money will magically come in and everyone will get tax cuts...

[Flubber]

Originally posted by notyoueither


However, when I consider that the Province has realised very lilttle revenue from the oil sands as of this date, and the pressure put on the people of this province to develop them thus far, and the price of oil has not been $40 for some time now...

Oh and I wanted to address this one. I agree that Alberta has not gotten a lot of revenue on oilsands. The reality was that the two Suncor and Suncrude projects were developed in an environment of $20 oil and many many in the industry thought they would never make money. But a higher initial royalty back then would have meant no projects. AS it was, there wee times when the projects were severely questioned (like when oil hit 12 bucks in 1998)

I have sat through some of the meetings where large capital projects are discussed-- The types of things where you need to spend a billion a year for 5 years before a project even STARTS producing. The economics of these types of projects are very sensitive to things like interest rates and royalties in the initial stages . .. things that delay the repayment of capital investments. Now the boom of the Alberta economy has seen the capital costs of oilsands projects skyrocket such that many of them are not economic at all even with $50 or $60 dollar oil. Add material additional royalties on the early barrels and you could get to a situation where none of the new projects are economic. Again-- not a threat-- just a factual assessment

The generic oilsands regime tops out at a royalty of 25% IIRC-- thats hardly peanuts.


NYE

People talk about a fair share ... I have never known what that is when we are talking about a royalty . IS 10% fair? 20%? 50 % I can know what is possible or economic on a given project. We see it all the time when we farmout lands-- One time you can get a 15% royalty while the next 5% is all that is possible (any more and the math on the project simply does not work).