Premier Rachel Notley. Greg Southam/Postmedia “The Government’s intent in the policy was to provide for the orderly development of the oil sands in such a manner as to supplement but not displace production from the conventional industry.” — Province of Alberta, Internal Memorandum, Oil Sands Development Policy, February 1968 At first it was just pushing and shoving by big companies in the oilsands sandbox. Now the heavyweight brawl has spread across the playground, into the conventional turf, affecting bystanders that are mostly lighter-weight companies, but large in number. Everyone is getting beaten up. With each shove to get new oil production into glutted pipelines comes a bloody nose to price. A barrel of the heavy stuff known as the Western Canadian Select (WCS) sells for under US$20 today. It should be fetching around US$40, plus or minus, depending upon global markets (mostly minus these days). A lot of people are talking about the “WCS” crisis. And that’s what it is. To our Canadian economy and to our reputation as an orderly place to do business. Yet, few are mentioning another calamity: the beaten down prices for other Canadian oil products like Edmonton Light. A barrel of this high-quality, conventional […]
