[Newsbot]

Title: As the oilsands are punished, tanker loads of cheap Saudi oil sail into Canadian ports daily | Calgary Herald
Category: Business
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2016-02-11 06:12:38
Canadian

[andyt]

$1:

It’s come to this because of pressure of groups such as the Sierra Club, which in a recent statement took credit for rallying Quebec mayors against Energy East. “When the Montreal Urban Community … announced its opposition to TransCanada Corporation’s controversial Energy East pipeline yesterday, nearly two dozen hard-working volunteers with Sierra Club Canada’s Quebec Chapter took a victory lap,” the group said.

Or because it’s an expedient way to build political capital or to show Canada is making progress on its new climate commitments to the international community or because reducing greenhouse gas emissions fairly is a lot harder than picking on pipelines. Less hypocrisy and more respect for the needs of ordinary Canadians would be nice once in a while.

Well maybe. I thought it's also come to this because it was a lot cheaper to do it this way, just as the oil industry shut down Canadian refineries and instead ships the oil to the US to be refined. It seems to have come to this long ago, and nobody said boo about it.

From the tone of the article, it seems to be saying we should not do anything about our greenhouse emissions, because that's just punishing the oil industry. The writer might reflect on the fact we were having more and more trouble selling our oil because of our ghg inaction. This issue never seems to have been raised before, now all of a sudden it's expected to be solved yesterday.

[BartSimpson]

You have to wonder whose side the Green Committees of Correspondence are on.

[Thanos]

I guess this is what it is supposed to feel like when you find out that all your supposed friends have actually hated you all along.

[sandorski]

Albertans have been butthurt over the NEP for decades now. Are they now going to get butthurt over the lack of it?

[2Cdo]

sandorski sandorski:

Albertans have been butthurt over the NEP for decades now. Are they now going to get butthurt over the lack of it?

Another sympathetic, compassionate leftie

[BeaverFever]

$1:

Oil Prices: What’s Behind the Drop? Simple Economics

....Why has the price of oil been dropping so fast? Why now?

This a complicated question, but it boils down to the simple economics of supply and demand.

United States domestic production has nearly doubled over the last several years, pushing out oil imports that need to find another home. Saudi, Nigerian and Algerian oil that once was sold in the United States is suddenly competing for Asian markets, and the producers are forced to drop prices. Canadian and Iraqi oil production and exports are rising year after year. Even the Russians, with all their economic problems, manage to keep pumping...

What happened to OPEC?
A central factor in the sharp price drops, analysts say, is the continuing unwillingness of OPEC, a cartel of oil producers, to intervene to stabilize markets that are widely viewed as oversupplied.

Iran, Venezuela, Ecuador and Algeria have been pressing the cartel to cut production to firm up prices, but Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other gulf allies are refusing to do so. At the same time, Iraq is actually pumping more, and Iran is expected to become a major exporter again.

Saudi officials have said that if they cut production and prices go up, they will lose market share and merely benefit their competitors. They say they are willing to see oil prices go much lower, but some oil analysts think they are merely bluffing.

If prices remain low for another year or longer, the newly crowned King Salman may find it difficult to persuade other OPEC members to keep steady against the financial strains. The International Monetary Fund estimates that the revenues of Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf allies will slip by $300 billion this year.


Interactive Graphic
How the U.S. and OPEC Have Controlled Prices »

Is there a conspiracy to bring the price of oil down?

There are a number of conspiracy theories floating around. Even some oil executives are quietly noting that the Saudis want to hurt Russia and Iran, and so does the United States — motivation enough for the two oil-producing nations to force down prices. Dropping oil prices in the 1980s did help bring down the Soviet Union, after all.

But there is no evidence to support the conspiracy theories, and Saudi Arabia and the United States rarely coordinate smoothly. And the Obama administration is hardly in a position to coordinate the drilling of hundreds of oil companies seeking profits and answering to their shareholders.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016 ... rices.html

[herbie]

More like someone DRILL, DRILL, DRILLED holes in the world economy...