TransCanada Pipelines Ltd.’s Keystone XL project, which is expected to create 20,000 construction jobs in the United States, was one issue Canadian Natural Resources Minster Joe Oliver addressed at a San Francisco conference on transportation and energy Tuesday.
“We have a number of purposes and one of them is to talk about clean energy and the transport sector, but I’m also taking advantage of the opportunity here in California to talk about the Keystone XL Pipeline as I’ve done before in New York and in Washington where I will be returning next month.”
Oliver made his comments during a conference call to reporters Tuesday while he was attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Joint Transportation and Energy Ministerial Conference.
He said the objective for Canadian participation in the conference was to collaborate and share best practices with leaders from other countries, with a goal of making transportation in Canada cleaner and more energy-efficient. Oliver said he talked about federal initiatives such as the new emissions regulations for passenger vehicles and light trucks, plus the proposed regulations on emissions that would apply to heavy-duty vehicles, including full-size pickup trucks, dump trucks, cement trucks and tractors pulling flatbed trailers, starting in the 2014 model year. Those proposed regulations are scheduled to be published in the Canada Gazette by Environment Canada early next year.
In addition to vehicle emissions, Oliver said he also talked about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, which some activists are opposing.
“This is an enormously important project for both of our countries,” Oliver said during the call. “For the United States, of course, it addresses the issue of energy security. It also results in a significant number of jobs during construction and after, and billions of dollars in economic growth for the United States and coming at a time with some economic challenge, these are critical factors.”
Keystone XL, if approved, would cost an estimated $7 billion and transport crude oil from the Alberta oil sands through six U.S. states to refineries in Texas. The U.S. State Department has determined it would have no significant environmental impact on the states it would cross, and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has essentially agreed.
“We respect the U.S. regulatory and political process but we are of course encouraged by the environmental impact statement of the U.S. State Department, which said that there were no significant impacts – along the proposed corridor,” Oliver said. “Because of some 57 conditions that were imposed on TransCanada PipeLines the (environmental impact statement) found that the project will have a degree of safety greater than any domestically constructed pipeline system as well. This positive conclusion of course follows the National Energy Board’s conclusion in Canada last year, so Canada as a reliable partner in supplying energy (to the U.S.) is top of mind.”
This week in California, Oliver is scheduled to meet with a number of officials, including George Shultz and other members of the Hoover Institution's Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy at Stanford University. Shultz, the 90-year-old chair of the Hoover Institution’s energy policy task force, was a cabinet secretary for Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, serving as Treasury Secretary from 1972 to 1974 and Secretary of State from 1982 until 1989.
As of noon Tuesday, Oliver had met with a variety of senior officials from California.
“Thanks to the enormous scale of our energy resources, I was able to illustrate to my international colleagues that even in times of global turmoil, Canada is the safe and reliable supplier of energy,” he said. “When Canada talks about the security and abundance of supply, people do in fact listen because we are the world’s sixth largest producer of oil, we are the third largest producer of both natural gas and hydroelectric power and we are the second largest producer of uranium, so that means a lot to our biggest trading partner, the U.S.”
But the government wants to diversify Canada’s customer base for energy, Oliver said, in response to a question from a reporter about pipelines from the Alberta oil sands to the British Columbia port of Kitimat.
“The overarching strategic need to diversify our energy customers is an important issue for this government,” he said. “We export 97 per cent of our energy to the United States and we would like to diversify that. There are a number of initiatives in this regard designed to address this strategic objective.”
For example, Enbridge has proposed the Northern Gateway, a $5.5 billion project that would connect the Alberta oil sands to Kitimat.
LNG Partners is also proposing construction of a liquefied natural gas export facility in Kitimat.
Source: http://dcnonl.com
“We have a number of purposes and one of them is to talk about clean energy and the transport sector, but I’m also taking advantage of the opportunity here in California to talk about the Keystone XL Pipeline as I’ve done before in New York and in Washington where I will be returning next month.”
Oliver made his comments during a conference call to reporters Tuesday while he was attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Joint Transportation and Energy Ministerial Conference.
He said the objective for Canadian participation in the conference was to collaborate and share best practices with leaders from other countries, with a goal of making transportation in Canada cleaner and more energy-efficient. Oliver said he talked about federal initiatives such as the new emissions regulations for passenger vehicles and light trucks, plus the proposed regulations on emissions that would apply to heavy-duty vehicles, including full-size pickup trucks, dump trucks, cement trucks and tractors pulling flatbed trailers, starting in the 2014 model year. Those proposed regulations are scheduled to be published in the Canada Gazette by Environment Canada early next year.
In addition to vehicle emissions, Oliver said he also talked about the controversial Keystone XL pipeline project, which some activists are opposing.
“This is an enormously important project for both of our countries,” Oliver said during the call. “For the United States, of course, it addresses the issue of energy security. It also results in a significant number of jobs during construction and after, and billions of dollars in economic growth for the United States and coming at a time with some economic challenge, these are critical factors.”
Keystone XL, if approved, would cost an estimated $7 billion and transport crude oil from the Alberta oil sands through six U.S. states to refineries in Texas. The U.S. State Department has determined it would have no significant environmental impact on the states it would cross, and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has essentially agreed.
“We respect the U.S. regulatory and political process but we are of course encouraged by the environmental impact statement of the U.S. State Department, which said that there were no significant impacts – along the proposed corridor,” Oliver said. “Because of some 57 conditions that were imposed on TransCanada PipeLines the (environmental impact statement) found that the project will have a degree of safety greater than any domestically constructed pipeline system as well. This positive conclusion of course follows the National Energy Board’s conclusion in Canada last year, so Canada as a reliable partner in supplying energy (to the U.S.) is top of mind.”
This week in California, Oliver is scheduled to meet with a number of officials, including George Shultz and other members of the Hoover Institution's Shultz-Stephenson Task Force on Energy Policy at Stanford University. Shultz, the 90-year-old chair of the Hoover Institution’s energy policy task force, was a cabinet secretary for Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, serving as Treasury Secretary from 1972 to 1974 and Secretary of State from 1982 until 1989.
As of noon Tuesday, Oliver had met with a variety of senior officials from California.
“Thanks to the enormous scale of our energy resources, I was able to illustrate to my international colleagues that even in times of global turmoil, Canada is the safe and reliable supplier of energy,” he said. “When Canada talks about the security and abundance of supply, people do in fact listen because we are the world’s sixth largest producer of oil, we are the third largest producer of both natural gas and hydroelectric power and we are the second largest producer of uranium, so that means a lot to our biggest trading partner, the U.S.”
But the government wants to diversify Canada’s customer base for energy, Oliver said, in response to a question from a reporter about pipelines from the Alberta oil sands to the British Columbia port of Kitimat.
“The overarching strategic need to diversify our energy customers is an important issue for this government,” he said. “We export 97 per cent of our energy to the United States and we would like to diversify that. There are a number of initiatives in this regard designed to address this strategic objective.”
For example, Enbridge has proposed the Northern Gateway, a $5.5 billion project that would connect the Alberta oil sands to Kitimat.
LNG Partners is also proposing construction of a liquefied natural gas export facility in Kitimat.
Source: http://dcnonl.com
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