Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Enbridge Prosperity Myth(updated)


 UPDATED HERE November 29th, this post needed to be rerun...The reason, not only is Alberta running another deficit, its 5th deficit in 6 years, this one is a whopper, Alberta will be running a staggering $2.5 billion dollar deficit and..Allison Redford wants to change accounting practices, she wants all new infrastructure investments to not count against the Alberta debt..
WTF, why is Alberta running $multi-billion dollar deficits when oil has hovered near $90 dollars per barrel for years...
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 Alberta government attacked over $3B deficit

 EDMONTON - Alberta is on track to run a deficit as high as $3 billion in the 2012-13 fiscal year, provincial finance officials said Wednesday, drawing sharp criticism from the opposition.
Speaking to the second-quarter results, Finance Minister Doug Horner said the budget problems revealed in the first-quarter financial update continued during July, August and September. Overall, he said, the province has a bright economic future. But of particular concern is lower than expected energy revenues.


Bitumen royalties fell $369 million short of six-month projections, while crude oil was $139 million short. Natural gas was $349 million short and Crown lease income was about half of the $1.1 billion expected.
The province has revised its price for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude downward from $99.25 in the budget to $92.50 in the second quarter update.
Those shortfalls matter because about a quarter of the province’s $40-billion budget is funded with resource revenue.
Alberta Finance also reported that expenses for the first six months were $293 million higher than expected. The reason, they said, was dealing with disasters such as forest fires and severe hailstorms.
The second quarter update continued the trend of quarterly reports that paint a less rosy picture than anticipated in the government’s February budget. Instead of an $886-million deficit projected for the year, finance officials said the deficit looked like it would range between $2.3 billion and $3 billion.

 http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Alberta+government+attacked+over+deficit/7621873/story.html
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Anderson calls out Redford and Horner for dishonest spin on need for government debt

EDMONTON, AB (November 14, 2012): The PC rhetoric justifying their plans to borrow billions for new infrastructure spending shows a frightening lack of financial literacy and awareness of global economic uncertainty, Wildrose Finance Critic Rob Anderson said today. 
Since 2004, the province had paid off its debt and paid for all infrastructure projects through annual revenue. Not including the current budget year, Alberta has spent $44.9 billion dollars on infrastructure through debt-free spending since that time;  roughly double the amount spent per-person compared to almost every other province. 
Despite this, Premier Redford justified putting Alberta back into debt by falsely stating that “if everything we do right now is fully funded with cash in the bank, then we are never going to build anything more in this province.” In addition, Finance Minister Doug Horner, inappropriately compared government going into debt with young couples taking out a mortgage on a home.  
“It is dishonest and misleading to say we cannot build infrastructure if we don’t go into debt and then to compare government going into debt with families investing in their first or second home,” Anderson said. “Roads, bridges and hospitals, though important, are depreciating assets that are never sold, cost billions to staff and maintain, and debt-financing such assets puts taxpayers solely at risk. On the other hand, a home mortgage is generally an appreciating asset that is regularly sold, and if things go badly, taxpayers are not on the hook.”  
With the province facing a $3 billion dollar deficit after an “Alison in Wonderland” pre-election budget that increased operational spending by a whopping $2.4 billion, Anderson said that both Redford and Horner are now making up excuses as they mortgage Alberta’s future and trash our province’s no-debt reputation. 
“The PCs did not campaign on running this government back into debt, and it’s certainly not what Albertans are asking for,” Anderson said.  “This government would have certainly lost the election had they campaigned on going back into debt, and they should either scrap their debt financing plans or at the very least, put the question to a provincial referendum.” 

 http://www.wildrose.ca/feature/anderson-calls-out-redford-and-horner-for-dishonest-spin-on-need-for-government-debt/

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(Still in update mode November 29th)- if Alberta is going broke with a massive increase in tar sand activity are we to believe an oil pipeline will bring harmonious wealth to BC?..The answer is no, the story belows explains how spikes in oil prices led to the world`s worst recessions, if oil spikes to $150 a barrel again the world will again enter a deep recession, in fact we are still in the last recession, ...Look at the criminals running(ruining) our BC Government, look what they have blamed for deficits, falling resource revenue, one by oine our Government is ceding tax breaks and subsidies to resource extractors and day by day BC is falling deeper in debt, Dutch Disease, you bet...Check out these numbers by David Shreck..
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Deep decade decline in natural resource revenue


Growth in some other sources of revenue is slow or negative. In 2000-2001 natural resource revenue totaled $3.96 billion, consisting mainly of forest revenue at $1.34 billion and natural gas revenue at $1.25 billion. In 2012-13, total natural resource revenue is estimated to be only $2.56 billion, with $546 million from forestry and $157 million from natural gas. This year total natural resource revenue is expected to be only 65 per cent of what it was in 2000-2001.



 http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/11/29/BC-Structural-Deficit/

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(Still in update mode November 29th), our resource revenue is but half of what it was 12 years ago, all that raping of the lands, all that drilling, fracking, water poisoning, damning and mining and BC`s royalties are going backwards, .....Today`s economists are nothing but shills for corporate welfare and our politicians are effing liars and thieves!

The Enbridge Prosperity Myth....Written by Grant G 

 

The Enbridge prosperity myth, I wasn`t sure what to title this story but after careful consideration it seemed appropriate, I read an interesting story involving Pat Carney, the premise of her story on Enbridge is this....

First Nations are opposed to Enbridge, there are 56 separate First Nation groups, the majority of those are interior Bands, and in fact many of those interior groups are willing(for a price) to allow the Enbridge pipeline through their territory, however, the First Nations(and average BCers) at most risk, those being the coastal First Nations and those BCers who rely on a vibrant healthy West Coast eco-system are being offered virtually nothing!

Think about that for just a moment, the Haisla Nation/Haida, North Island bands and West Coast fishers  who would be at risk of losing everything, of losing a one of a kind eco-paradise are being almost completely left out of the process!...Meaning this, an interior band doesn`t have to worry too much, they merely have to maintain an inland pipeline through their territory, not if but when a Oil Tanker disaster strikes the BC Northcoast the ones affected, the coasters are out of the loop, interior bands, interior First Nations will still get their money, the oil disaster risk is very minor to interior First Nations compared to the risk  West Coasters will bear, by a country mile!

Here is a little cut n paste from the Pat Carney article....
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OTTAWA — The $5.5-billion Northern Gateway pipeline linking Alberta's vast oilsands wealth to Asian markets via a northern B.C. port won't likely meet its 2017 target to begin shipments — if it's built at all, retired B.C. Conservative Senator Pat Carney said Thursday

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I highlighted one line....Northern Gateway pipeline linking Alberta's vast oilsands wealth.
You see that, it isn`t BC`s wealth, it isn`t Canada`s wealth it`s Alberta`s wealth, Alberta and by extension the Federal Government wants British Columbia to take all the risk, every river and stream the pipeline will traverse and there are thousands of them and the biggy, our entire West Coast as we know it could be destroyed by an Oil Tanker accident, and what do we get out of it?....Some puny royalties?..A pat on the back, what do millions of BCers get out of risking our Coast, risking what we are, risking everything for a few dollars in royalties!

Here is a little something from Pembina

Royalties Down 32%, Billions
in Federal Revenue Lost
OIL BOOMS:
O V E R H A U L I N G T H E R O YA LT Y A N D TA X T R E AT M E N T O F A L B E R TA’ S O I L S A N D S
Record oil prices, record oil sands production,
record profits for companies, and yet Alberta’s
oil sands royalty return per barrel is down 32%,
and the federal government has lost up to
$1.65 billion to oil sands tax breaks.
 Since 1997, when the current royalty regime was
implemented, capital investments in oil sands projects
have increased more than 300% and oil sands
production has increased 88%. By 2004, production
surpassed one million barrels per day – a production
target that was originally set for 2020. In
just one decade, the price of oil has increased 214%.
While the low royalty rates and federal tax break
were deemed necessary in the early days of oil sands
developments, they have outlived their purpose.
The low royalty rates mean that between
1996 and 2005 royalty revenue paid to
Albertans declined by 32% from $3.39
to $2.29 per barrel of oil
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Well there it is, the price of oil has skyrocketed and royalties to Actual Albertans has fallen, fallen aplenty, and the same goes to the Federal Government, as production increases in the oil sands, which it has year after year the Federal Government is making less and less, at the rate it`s falling even the vast Oilsands are soon to be a welfare industry....Perhaps you think I`m over-stating the case, well, here`s a little more Pembina for you...
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It’s bad enough that oil sands royalties
are declining as oil sands production
goes up and oil companies reap windfall
profits. Now cost over-runs for the
construction of new oil sands projects,
brought on by an economy that has
been overheated by the pace of development,
are further reducing royalties
and taxes that Alberta and the federal
government should be receiving.
Cost over-runs mean oil companies
stay at the 1% royalty rate longer
before jumping to the 25% rate,
which means Albertans get less
revenue today.
Even when companies do get to the
25% rate, it is based on their net
income so higher expenses means
even less revenue for the resource
owners, the public.
Cost over-runs also cost Canadians
money. This is because federal taxes
are reduced or deferred because of
the sweetheart deal that enables oil
sands companies to write off 100%
of their capital costs.
This means taxpayers subsidize not
only the start-up of the oil sands industry
but continue to subsidize project
expansions too. And now that the
industry is getting too big, too quickly,
Canadian taxpayers are also on
the hook for cost over-runs resulting
from an overheated economy
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So west-Coasters and First Nations take all the oil tanker risk, and we get nothing, West Coast First Nation`s are not on the pipeline route, fisherman, eco-tourism, 100,000`s of West Coast jobs and a way of life being put at risk for nothing, what will BC receive for royalties per-barrel ?....I can guarantee you it won`t be anywhere near the $2.29 per barrel Albertans get!....And if you read the above, Oil companies are only paying Royalties on NET Profits/revenue...This explains why as of late Alberta has run deficits, no wonder the Heritage fund is going backwards!

The federal Government, Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have lost their way, the oilsands are portrayed by the Harperites as the key for Canada`s future, this is a patent falsehood, today, currently Canada`s GDP is roughly $1.4 Trillion dollars per year, that`s alot of money sloshing around, so what would the Enbridge pipeline add to Canada`s GDP over say the next 30 years....Well according to Enbridge`s spokesman Paul Stanway..

"But it's also the key to Canadians getting full value for the country's most important export — potentially adding $270 billion to Canada's GDP over the next 30 years."

That works out to less than $9 billion dollars added to Canada`s GDP per year....And I`m sure Paul Stanway has enlarged that number, so what would BC receive, how much in royalties?....The Gulf Spill cost over $40 billion to clean up, so far!, The Gulf of Mexico,  a big open bathtub without thousands of islands, inlets, coves, the cost of a Northern BC coastal spill would dwarf that....And how is B.P.(British Petroleum)doing after their major spill...Well let me tell you how good they`re doing...
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BP's first-quarter net profits leapt 17 percent thanks to high crude prices, the British energy giant said Wednesday, adding that it was revising upward the cost of last year's fatal Gulf oil spill disaster.
Earnings after tax jumped to $7.124 billion (4.9 billion euros) in the three months to March, compared with the first quarter of 2010, BP said in a results statement.
It added that the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spill would cost BP $41.3 billion, up from a previous guidance of $40.9 billion, and warned of "significant uncertainty" surrounding the company's ultimate exposure
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So, let`s re-examine that GDP number, one big Oil Spill could wipe out not only our West Coast environment but also any financial gain Canada might have gained, for like I said before, when the inevitable oil spills occur,  time and time again oil companies don`t pay, they fight, they fight in court for years, like the Exxon Valdez disaster 20 plus years gone by and still Exxon Mobile hasn`t paid, litigants will die of old age before anyone receives a dime, ....Perhaps you doubters think that the courts are no longer giving big oil a free ride, ....Well maybe you missed this little story that was all but squashed from Canadian media(on purpose)....British Petroleum(B.P.)...B.P. won a court battle, and guess who just got screwed again, the little people, the US taxpayer, here is the SHOCKING STORY...
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US District court has dismissed over 100,000 lawsuits brought against BP And Transocean to pay for oil spill clean up costs and environmental damages caused to the Gulf of Mexico from the BP Gulf Oil Spill. The court ruled that injury stopped the moment the well was sealed and the Federal Government, aka The US Taxpayer, is now liable for clean up costs along with any damages caused by deficiencies of the cleanup of the Gulf Of Mexico.

The US District Courts have ruled that since oil is no longer flowing from the Macando Well BP and Transocean are not liable for cleanup costs and damages from the BP Gulf Oil Spill since the “well has already been sealed and the injury has already been committed”.
In the ruling the court goes on note that Federal Government is in charge of the oil spill clean up efforts. Thus any damages related to the cleanup are now the burden of the Federal Government, meaning the US Taxpayer.
The ruling means that Taxpayers are not only liable for the clean up of the BP Gulf Oil Spill but it also means that any damages caused by deficiencies of the clean up in the Gulf is now also the responsibility of the US Taxpayer.
The lawsuits against BP have been bundled into separate packages with all of the lawsuits pertaining to BP’s liability for cleanup costs and environmental damages being dismissed with this ruling.
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No wonder Harper`s media sheep kept this dreadful ruling quiet....So not only would BC be risking everything for tiny royalties, any oil tanker disaster on our B.C. north coast would wipe out any and all financial gains the Province would ever receive, in British Columbia a major spill on the BC North Coast would spawn 1000`s of lawsuits, 1000`s would lose everything and fighting in court against Big Oil`s in-house lawyers would be an exercise in futility!...

Time for a left turn on this story, back to the title..."The Enbridge Prosperity Myth"

B.C. has the highest fuel prices in Canada, we have the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline coming to Vancouver, we are already risking the Southern coast, does the BC Consumer gain anything cooperating with Alberta????? Has Alberta guaranteed BCers cheap oil, a guaranteed cheap price for a partner????,,,,Not a chance in HELL, we in BC will still be paying the highest fuel prices in Canada, no breaks here, is Alberta willing to guarantee British Columbia or Canada as a whole a cheap supply of oil....Not a chance in Hell, the Government of Canada as a wholesaler of oil isn`t prepared to give its own people one dime of relief!....It`s what Harper calls the "Free-Market"....Yet there is nothing free about it, if it was free Big The Alberta/Federal Government wouldn`t have slashed royalties and given such lucrative tax write offs to the point of turning the highly profitable oil industry into "corporate welfare"!

Big oil will never stop hurting the little guys, any big spill clean up costs will be unloaded onto the Government and the people.

Big OIL....Big recessions......The 3 biggest recessions in North America since the great depression in 1929 have been spawned by big oil price spikes.....Here are the Straight Goods, with a little help from Wikipedia.,...

Recession of 1973....Duration of resession, 1 year 4 months....Peak unemployment..9.0%....Decline in GDP from peak to trough...-3.2%....And here is what Wikipedia says about the cause of that recession...


A quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC coupled with Government spending on the Vietnam War led to stagflation in the USA, The period was also marked by the 1973 oil crisis and the 1973-1974 stock market crash, The period is remarkable for rising unemployment coinciding with rising inflation......

1980 recession...Duration of resession, 1 year 4 months...Peak unemployment 10.8%....Decline in GDP from peak to trough...-2.7 .....The cause of that recession, from Wikipedia...

The Iranian revolution sharply increased the price of oil around the world in 1979 causing the 1979 energy crisis, This was caused by the new regime in power in Iran, which exported oil at inconsistent intervals and at a lower volume, forcing prices up, tight monetary policy in the USA to control inflation led to another recession, the changes were made largely because of inflation carried over from the previous decade because of the 1973 oil crisis and the 1979 energy crisis.

Isn`t that special, the two largest and longest recessions since the great depression caused by monkey business in the oil game......And guess what, Wikipedia hasn`t made the connection with the 2008 recession and spike in the price of big oil(yet)....Here is the data from the NOW OVER(apparently) 2008 recession....

2008 recession....duration of recession..1 year 6 months...Peak unemployment...10.1%....Decline in GDP from peak to trough...-5.1%.....

Yet nobody has made the connection, not Wikipedia, not the economists, me, just me, oil prices shot up to nearly $150 dollars a barrel at that time in history, consumers got hammered around the world, in fact the price of gas in BC was very very high.......And even at $96 dollars a barrel, the price at BC pumps is almost the same as the price it is today, EXPENSIVE!.....

The 1973 recession was caused by a spike in oil prices, so was the 1980 recession, and so was the 2008 recession, but this time it`s different, in the 1970`s wages were still rising, in 1980 wages were still rising but now at a snail`s pace, .....Wages have been absolutely flat in North America since the 1980`s....Now after both of those recessions oil fell back down in price.....But this time....This time oil fell back to $50 dollars a barrel but it didn`t stay there, oil has been rising fast, every time the stock market looks like a recovery oil spikes upwards to again punish consumers...

The price of oil was $20 dollars a barrel when George Bush invaded Iraq in early 2002, today the price is nearly $100 dollars per barrel....This last recession hasn`t ended and won`t end with $100 dollar plus per barrel, ......There is a fundamental reason for that...Wages are flat, in fact the median income for North Americans has been flat for 2 decades, and over the last 2 years and this year the median income in the USA has actually fallen....Here is a little tidbit from the Wallstreet journal


"The income of the typical American family—long the envy of much of the world—has dropped for the third year in a row and is now roughly where it was in 1996 when adjusted for inflation.
The income of a household considered to be at the statistical middle fell 2.3% to an inflation-adjusted $49,445 in 2010, which is 7.1% below its 1999 peak, the Census Bureau said......

 The Census Bureau's annual snapshot of living standards offered a new set of statistics to show how devastating the recession was and how disappointing the recovery has been. For a huge swath of American families, the gains of the boom of the 2000s have been wiped out."


Now look at Europe, austerity measures, wages cut, benefits cut, taxes being raised, user fees, and in most European countries GDP is falling, the world will stay in recession for eternity unless either wages spike like oil prices or when oil falls back down to affordable prices.

The difference with this latest recession is this....Wages can no longer support extended high oil prices, people are earning less and being taxed more, there is no more room for increased prices, have you people noticed the price of food as of late?..I have, and so have many BCers...

Global and CTV ran a story last week, a BC story, a story about crime, new crime, shoplifting....Shoplifting is on the rise big-time in British Columbia and the most amazing part of the story was who was doing the stealing and what they were taking....The new breed of shoplifters are struggling parents and seniors stealing food, stealing meat, cheese, stealing chocolate, items that average folks used to be able to afford are no longer within reach of their pocketbook, only within reach of their hands...The big food manufacturers are now cheating, sneaky packaging with new smaller containers, containers that look like the old containers, only they hold less, smaller cans, smaller jars, new funky designs in containers to appear larger than they really are.

Here in BC people are stealing food to survive, BC has the highest poverty level again, 8 years in a row...Highest fuel prices, highest priced housing and lowest median income in Canada..

This post is about the crimes of big oil, the myth of prosperity, the illusion of oil wealth when the reality is....We might as well buy oil from Saudi Arabia and refine it ourselves, it would be no more expensive than the price we pay now, Alberta and the Federal Conservatives will never give Canadians a break on domestic oil, not even a break for a Province which could lose their entire West Coast.....There is nothing positive for British Columbia in allowing the Enbridge pipeline.

And lastly, China has recently announced that they will be spending over $1.5 trillion US dollars on "Strategic industries"...These industries include...Nuclear power...Alternative fuels, solar power, and high end technology...

India has the Tata, a compressed air powered car, China will come up with their own technology, Canada would be fools to advance the Enbridge pipeline when China is in the midst of change, Alberta, Enbridge, they crave $200 dollar per barrel oil, it might come but there won`t be anyone buying it, the world economy would crash, the world even today can`t sustain  current oil prices.

Canada`s GDP in 2010.....$1.4 trillion dollars.....The Stephen Harper Government and Alberta wants to risk our BC coast for a whopping....


.55 % to Canada`s GDP per year .....Or if you like over 30 years,......A total of 20% of one year`s GDP(2010`s GDP) over a 30 year period!

The math doesn`t work, the risk isn`t worth it and the world is on the cusp of change, and lastly, with low royalties, with but a handful of after pipeline construction jobs and with Big Oil continuing to stiff their legal responsibilities while fighting tooth and nail to avoid any culpability for any spills.

The answer is no, British Columbians will never allow the Enbridge Northern pipeline, and that includes going against bribed interior First Nations people who are prepared to risk what they don`t own and could never replace.....

The Wild Super Natural Northern BC Coast.

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Updated here...


This fascinating story from the Huntington Post – it deserves to be passed on!!!
Canada Oil And Gas Industry: Shrinking Profits May Be A Sign Of Things To Come
Canada Oil Gas Industry
Canada's energy industry may be facing more than a blip. Revolutionary changes in energy extraction pose a real long-term threat to the industry. (AP photo)
The talk coming out of Canada’s oil patch in recent months has been increasingly tinged with panic. Industry leaders are growing worried about the oil sands’ future prospects, and the earnings reports coming out this week are a good sign of why that may be.
Oil producer Cenovus on Wednesday reported a 40-per-cent decline in profit  in the latest quarter, falling to $396 million from $655 million a year earlier.
Things were even worse for Calgary-based natural gas producer Encana, whichrecorded a whopping quarterly $1.48 billion loss. It had recorded a profit of $383 million in the same period a year earlier.
(And Canada's largest energy producer -- Suncor -- said on Wednesday it's mulling delaying some of its new projects . The company denied market conditions were behind the move, saying only that the company is "looking at how we get the best economics for those projects.")
On the surface, the reason for this is obvious: Declining energy prices. Natural gas prices are at rock bottom, and prices for oil have been under downward pressure as the world economy faces a tough summer thanks to Europe’s credit crisis and a slowdown in China.
But beneath the surface is a rapidly-changing global energy industry. With the U.S. rapidly developing its shale oil and gas deposits, Asia increasingly looking to renewable energy, and the controversy over the environmental impact of the oil sands showing no signs abating, Canada’s energy exporters could find themselves in a seemingly unthinkable situation: Lots of oil, and few markets to sell it.
All this is happening just as Canada’s dependence on energy exports has been reaching new heights. As the Globe and Mail reported, oil and gas sales, as well investment in oil sands infrastructure, accounted for one-third of Canada’s economic growth in 2010 and 2011 .
So what happens to Canada when energy and commodity prices go down?
“If oil prices get to a point where they are going to deter investment in the [energy] sector, the negatives outweigh the benefits,” TD Bank economist Diana Petramala told the Globe.
That scenario -- unthinkable just a few years ago -- may be exactly what Canada’s natural resource sector may be facing. And it’s not just a temporary blip in prices Canada is facing -- it may be a permanent and revolutionary shift in energy extraction that makes Canada’s oil sands far less desirable than they seemed until now.
One thing threatening Canada’s energy sector is the new American oil and gas boom . With new extraction techniques like hydraulic fracturing coming online, U.S. energy companies are busily starting to drill on domestic soil again . The oil industry in Texas is booming in a way it hasn’t in more than three decades, and plenty of other, less expected, places are becoming oil meccas. Meanwhile, new supplies of natural gas have pushed prices for the energy source down to near-record levels.
This boom is already having tangible effects on Canada’s oil industry. Insiders estimate that Canadian exporters, unable to export to markets other than the U.S., are facing a $15 per barrel discount on the oil they sell, when compared to international Brent crude prices.
Secret government documents obtained by Postmedia earlier this month  argue Canada’s oil exports have become “landlocked” by the lack of pipeline infrastructure, and by environmental concerns surrounding carbon-heavy bitumen. The report urged the country to “address the environmental issues surrounding the current and projected growth of the industry.”
It may seem paradoxical, then, that Canada is pushing so hard to get the Keystone XL pipeline to the U.S. built. But as many observers argue, the point of the pipeline is not so much to get more Canadian oil to the U.S. market -- it’s to get Canadian oil to the U.S. ports that can take it to other markets  -- particularly Asia. And the Northern Gateway pipeline project, which would carry oil and gas between Alberta and the ports on the B.C. coast, is obviously meant for this purpose.
(The ease with which President Barack Obama delayed the Keystone XL pipeline is, according to some, a sign that the U.S. simply doesn’t need more Canadian oil ; if it was necessary as an energy security prerogative, there would have been little question as to approving the pipeline.)

This week's announcement that Chinese state-owned oil firm CNOOC has made a $15.1-billion offer for Calgary-based Nexen is a clear sign that China is interested in the oil sands. Yet despite this, Asia is beginning to look uncertain as a market for Canadian oil, both in the short term and long. OPEC is projecting lower demand for oil  in the near future, potentially jeopardizing any hopes of new markets for Canadian oil in the next few years.
In the long term, Asia is already looking to renewable energy. With their large, dense populations, and dependence on Middle Eastern oil, Asian countries see diversification of energy sources as a prerogative, if not an absolute necessity.

Read the full story at the Huffington post








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Eventually even the big players catch up to the Powell River Persuader..
 



The Straight Goods



Cheers Eyes Wide Open









Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Wallmart, Polo Shirts to Ashes, भगवान आपके आत्माओं को आशीर्वाद

Before you read this story, I am still having that glitch problem, to read this story without the interference below(a link from another post mid stream) click the story title and read story solo, not as part of the front page, sorry for the technical issue..Grant G

Wallmart, Polo Shirts to Ashes, भगवान आपके आत्माओं को आशीर्वाद by Grant G


 Maybe I`m old school, for as long as I can remember railing against cheap goods made in China and India was the norm, racism was not the issue nor was Canadian and American pride in our domestic quality, protection of my fellow equal and job security into the long term were high on my reason-to buy-local list but to be brutally frank, the task of both shopping local and finding a country of origin tag originating on our continent is a feat in itself....and let me be clear, there are a hundred other countries we could look to and point fingers at..

 For years and years I wouldn`t be caught dead in a Wallmart, or big box store, buy small, support the local but in trying to do so, labels don`t lie, same crap pile, same labels of origin dominated by India and China now dominate even the small mom and pop shops, so now going to Wallmart matters not, the choice of where to buy isn`t dominated by country but by price, where has our domestic manufacturing gone?..

If I am going to be forced to buy cheaply made stuff, forced to buy even quality made goods but only made by 1 or 2 countries then the lowest price will be the deciding factor, as North America`s and Europe`s middleclass families and workers vanish, when family budgets shrivel and dry Wallmart flourishes, a perpetuating syndrome, the poorer people get the cheaper the goods are made, economies of scale develop, have you noticed, jars, juice containers, soup cans, almost every consumable and weighed consumer product contained within various shaped and sized containers have been transformed into the smaller, by deliberate guile our purchases are reduced, less mayonnaise, less ketchup, less everything, these containers look the same however, on close examination there are indentions and blockages, indentations designed to reduce volume and blockages configured to obstruct, the lines are clearly drawn, and the sands of profit are very fine..

Recently dog treats with ingredients from China have killed pets, several years ago China used melamine to spike protein levels in their wheat gluten to increase profits, it worked, melamine plasticizer did indeed cause protein levels to spike in wheat gluten, it also caused the death of 100,000 plus pet cats in North America, including one of mine(almost 2) and yet I never knew the cat food in my buggy was mostly filled with raw ingredients from China and how could one know when the label said "product of Ontario"..

Counterfeit goods from what we class as third world countries, India, China, and yes many many more countries, those two are the most prolific offenders, fake baby milk, fake prescriptions, fake fake and more goddamn fakery..

I was reading ALJAZEERA and there it was, a story I dreaded reading, that story spawned looking for another story, then some research, then more stories and the deeper I dug the more heinous my conclusion became, intrigue, high finance, worker bees, slaves, slave controllers, middle(doing the dirty work) managers, loan sharks and human smugglers and the worst part of it all, it`s also you, it`s our politicians, lobbyists and corporate sell outs, not only have we been sitting idly by watching our future prosperity go on permanent over seas holidays we also lit the match and turned lives to ashes, by no choice of my own my own hands have returned to soot

Phil Hocstein, Fraser institute, Michael Campbell, BC Liberals, temporary Chinese workers, workers doing agriculture, burger flipping, truck driving, now even coal mining, economists continue to use words like productivity, as in Canada needs to "increase productivity", code-word and phrasing once translated means "lower wages" while producing "more product" and yes at one time outsourcing meant setting up shop in foreign countries but now even resource extraction where the ores, coals, oil n gases are here in Canada, no problemo, now you merely bring in cheap labour, we saw examples on many a BC project, Golden Ears bridge, the Canada line, multi-billion dollar projects that both went way over the taxpayer funded budget and still cheap labour was infiltrated by those connected, right under our noses, through guile, bafflegab and a Canadian-take-it-in-stride-attitude by ignoring the issue, and today we must look in the mirror, identify the complicit enabler and admit what we are, party too the crimes...

Apparently Wallmart announced that Tuba(Textile Giant from India) had violated contract conditions by outsourcing to a CODE-Orange rated textile manufacturer named :Tazreen:

Code Orange means the company has had too many safety violations and those violations are safety, fire safety write-ups being the most serious, Tazreen was a vertical factory with the first floor mainly used for supplies, actual manufacturing took place on upper floors..

112 confirmed dead so far, a shoddy sweatshop burnt to the ground, a sweatshop named Tazreen, where fleece jackets and polo shirts are made by the millions, jackets, shirts and other garments you will find on Wallmart shelves, products that many of you will open up on Christmas day..

So there was a fire, a tragic fire, shit happens right?..Wrong, in reading one story everyone talked arson, deliberate sabotage, I thought my gawd, how could anyone burn down hundreds of workers then I read how Wallmart had announced the day before the fire that Tazreen was out, so was another company TUBA outsourced to..No longer would Wallmart deal with them, but what of the product these workers made, the supply chain moves, by the time Wallmart layed the boots to Tazreen they had made probably millions of garments, the supply chain goes as follows, clothing items made, items shipped to domestic distributor, items shipped to national distributor, then shipped to Wallmart and in most cases actual payment comes much much later...

Who would deliberately torch these domestic Indian workers and why, the first story had no answers...

We have come to the conclusion that it was an act of sabotage. We are finding out as of now who exactly the saboteurs
are and all culprits will be brought to book," Alamgir said.

Earlier, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina said she suspected the fire was an act of sabotage, but she did not identify any suspect or say why she thought the cause might have been arson.
More than 1,000 workers, some carrying black flags, demonstrated in the Ashulia industrial belt on the outskirts of
the capital where the factory is located.

They blocked traffic moving on a highway and vowed to avenge the deaths of their colleagues, witnesses said.
"Never shall we give up demands for punishment for those responsible for the tragedy," one worker said.
Habibur Rahman, Dhaka district police chief, told Reuters news agency that his men were investigating complaints from some survivors that factory managers stopped workers from running out of the building when a fire alarm went off.
Representatives of the Tazreen Fashions factory, including the owner, were not available for comment.
'Violation of policies'
The developments in Bangladesh came a day after the US retail giant Walmart said it had ended its relationship with an unnamed supplier who sourced garments from the Tazreen factory.

The multinational company severed ties with its supplier as anger over safety standards in Bangladesh's clothes manufacturing industry mounted. Bangladesh offers cheap labour to many Western apparel brands for manufacturing.
In a statement issued on Monday, Walmart expressed its condolences to the victims' families and said: "The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh.
"A supplier subcontracted work to this factory without authorisation and in direct violation of our policies. The Tazreen factory was no longer authorised to produce merchandise for Walmart. Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier."


 http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia/2012/11/201211271991287788.html

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 Answers to my questions weren`t contained within that Aljazeera story, the  answer was indeed contained elsewhere, in thinking about why, why burn the employees down, I mused in the back of my mind, were these employees paid, I wonder, for why else would someone resort to acts that heinous if it wasn`t for money, Aljazeera`s take left me wanting answers and this wretched device i`m typing with and social media supplied the answers..

There were social media accounts of locked fire-escapes, and even more shocking reports of middle-managers keeping the workers in place for 10 precious minutes plus, managers telling workers that the fire alarm was but a drill, "get back to work" and aggression was used, not until smoke started filling the upper factory worker floors did many rise and attempt escape, by then it was too late for many...

And then I came across this...

"Survivors have described how a fire tore through a multi-storey garment factory just outside Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, killing more than 100 of their colleagues in one of the worst such incidents in recent years.

Mohammad Shahbul Alam, 26, described flames filling two of the three stairwells of the nine-floor building – where clothes for international
brands including high-street names appear to have been made — shortly after the fire alarm had been raised.

Rooms full of female workers were cut off as piles of yarn and fabric filling corridors ignited. Reports also suggested fire exits at the site had locks on, which had to be broken in order for staff to escape.


"It was 6.45pm when the fire alarm was raised. I rushed out. I heard that [grills blocking the way to] the second and third floors were locked. When I came down, I saw fire at both the stairways that the ladies used. I still have not found any trace of my sister-in-law," Alam told the Guardian.


According to Zakir Hossain, another worker, management told their employees not to evacuate immediately.


"The office staff asked us to stay where we were, telling us not to panic. We did not listen to them and started moving out," Hossain recalled. "A lot of people were stuck there. Some people got out climbing down the bamboo [scaffolding] tied against the building."


Witnesses said many workers leapt from upper stories in a
bid to escape the flames. Twelve workers died in hospital from injuries sustained in falls, officials said, bringing the overall toll to 123 dead and more than 150 injured.

The blaze will focus attention once more on the conditions in which workers producing clothes for
sale in the west work.

Fires in textiles and garments factories across south Asia have killed hundreds in recent months. More than 280 died in oneat a site in Karachi, Pakistan, in September.

Delwar Hossein, the managing director of the Dhaka factory, told the Guardian that the factory, Tazreen Fashions, had been making clothes for European high street giant C&A among other clients.


"I lived on these workers' efforts," he said. "I could not do anything for my workers. I do not know what went wrong and cannot understand why the staff could not get out of the building."


There was no immediate response from C&A.


The factory, in the Ashulia industrial zone, is one of around 4,000 such installations in Bangladesh, many of which operate with minimal safeguards against fire or industrial accidents.
The country annually earns about £12.5bn from exports of garment products, mainly to the US and Europe.

Earlier this year, more than 300 factories near the capital were shut for almost a week as workers demanded higher wages and better working conditions.


Siddiq Ur Rahman, acting president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said the families of the dead would receive 100,000 aka (£760) as compensation.


Abu Nayeem Mohammad Shahidullah, director general of the Dhaka fire brigade, told reporters the toll could still rise.


Army soldiers and border guards had been deployed to help police keep order at the scene of the tragedy as thousands of anxious and angry relatives of the factory workers gathered.


Kalpona Akter, from the Bangladesh Centre for Workers' Solidarity (BCWS), said: "We initially thought the fire broke out from generator but I checked the generator room today and it was not from there.".


Akter said that locks on exits at the factory had been broken, indicating that the gates had been locked when the fire broke out. Most bodies are too badly burned for immediate investigation. Fire service officials have said they believe a short circuit was responsible"


________

That report really angered me and my world tour began, the more I dug the more my disgust with capitalism and Facism rose, this is why we need unions and worker protections, guaranteed incomes and live-able wages, the very things Harper and our own BC Liberals are doing to us, removing Grant`s law, watering down safety measures, remember the mushroom farmers, remember the illegal 10 person vans without seats, without seatbelts, these vans that slaughtered BC`s own sweatshop workers, now we have imported Chinese coal miners brought here to die in underground coal mines, and to die at a cut-rate price.. There is no difference except the severity of the violations, abuse is abuse and the driving force is corporate profits, now angered to no end I ran across the Straight Goods on this deliberate crime...From the times of Asia..

________
Bangladesh blaze points to hell of garments trade
By Syed Tashfin Chowdhury


"The reason for the blaze is not yet known, with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina raising the prospect of a political motive while some survivors said they had been promised before the tragedy that they would receive on Sunday three-months' unpaid wages and an unpaid standard bonus for the October Eid festival.
Tazreen Fashions, located in a rural area of Ashulia district nearly a three-hour drive from Dhaka, occupies a nine-storied building, with a space of nearly 1,500 square meters on each floor. The ground floor, which stored the factory's raw materials, had the only entrance to the factory, with three staircases leading to other floors.

The factory's main operations took place from the first to the fifth floors, with the three remaining floors still under construction. According to survivors and witnesses, the fire broke out on the ground floor around 6:15pm on Saturday. Manik Mia, who was working on the fifth floor, escaped immediately after hearing the fire warning siren. "I managed to rush down the stairs and ran out of the factory, not heeding what my production manager had to say. But I also witnessed how production managers of the first and second floors were barring workers from leaving their workstations, calling it a 'fire drill'," he said. 



Although this seemed to ease the minds of some workers, panic broke out about seven minutes later when smoke began to billow upwards. Workers, mostly female, stampeded to the first and second floors in a bid to make it to the ground-floor entrance. But as fire barred access to the stairs and the only gates were also allegedly locked up under instruction of management, possibly fearing looting, the workers tried to break through upstairs windows. Some tried to scale the pipes outside the building and others jumped through holes they managed to make by breaking large exhaust fans on the first floor.

Some workers managed survived their falls from upper floors with severe injuries. Others were not so fortunate. According to fire department sources, those "trapped on the first and second floors could not come out as there were not enough exits". 



 After the recovery work was suspended around Sunday evening, some reporters and workers went into the charred building. Mahfuzul Haque, a journalist with New Age, told Asia Times Online, "I walked into the second floor to find a skull. There was no skin on it. The rest of the body was nowhere to be found. Here and there lay body parts like hair, arms etc. There were pieces of glass bangles all over the floor, as mostly female workers had faced the tragedy."

The incident has again brought the working conditions of Bangladesh's apparels industry, which earns US$19 billion a year in revenue, into the international spotlight.

More than 500 Bangladeshi workers have died in factory fires since 2006, according to Clean Clothes Campaign, an Amsterdam-based anti-sweatshop advocacy group. Such a list would have been reduced if most of the nearly 3,000 apparel factories in Bangladesh, employing over 3 million workers, had met fire safety standards, according to labor experts in Bangladesh.

"The manner in which the gates of the only entrances to most factories are locked, thus trapping thousands of workers inside the factory once a shift begins - and also in the case of such disasters or unrest - is a punishable offence according to Bangladesh's Labour Act of 1965," Syed Sultan Uddin Ahmed, assistant executive director of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies told Asia Times Online. ...........




He urged a proper investigation by the five committees that have been set up to investigate the tragedy.

"Inquiry committees were also formed during earlier fires, like the one at Ha-meem garments factory in December 2010 that claimed the lives of at least 23 workers. But no concrete report was made public later. This should not happen this time," he said.

Tazreen Fashion's parent company, Tuba Group, exports apparel products to major brands like Walmart, Carrefour and IKEA, according to its website. Its Tazreen factory, which opened in 2009, employed about 1,600 people to make polo shirts, fleece jackets and T-shirts. These were exported to countries like USA, Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and others.

Tuba's website displays a document mentioning that Tazreen was rated "orange", which stands for a high-risk safety rating, following a May 2011 audit conducted by an "ethical sourcing" assessor assigned by Walmart, the world's largest retail company.

Walmart spokesman Kevin Gardner said after the blaze that Walmart was "so far unable to confirm that Tazreen is a supplier to Walmart nor if the document referenced in the article is in fact from Walmart
.".............

 Mohiuddin suggested that the incident could be sabotage, echoing comments by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to parliament on Monday that the fire was "pre-planned".

Hasina brought the parliament's attention to how on Sunday, as the ashes of the Tazreen factory were still warm, a worker at a Debonair garments factory, also in Ashulia, set a fire inside her then empty workplace. The fire was doused before it could cause damage.

"I have seen video footage of it recorded on the CCTV camera," Hasina said. The worker, one Sumi Begum, "was paid 20,000 takas [US$246] for torching it. He who paid her has also been arrested. But those who are behind all these must be arrested." According to police, Sumi was paid by a Debonair floor manager to start the fire.

The following day, a fire broke out at a third factory in Dakhshin Khan, nearer the center of Dhaka. No casualties were reported in the incident.

Hasina also implied that politicians belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, a member of the opposition 18-party alliance, could be behind such blazes, which in threatening the garments industry also threaten to undermine the country's most important foreign currency earner. She referred to how anti-independent forces (senior Jamaat-e-Islami leaders who collaborated with and supported Pakistan at the time) set fire to jute factories in Bangladesh during the 1971 war for independence."


 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NK28Df02.html

____________________

We didn`t have an accident, just look at the facts on the ground, Wallmart just cut off parts of TUBA`s outsourced suppliers, Tazreen was one of TUBA`s suppliers, the employees haven`t been paid for three months, with Wallmart cutting off the nose of the cover company, that being TUBA the odds were those employees of Tazreen would never be paid, perhaps the ruthless bulldogs, the worker guards, those being middle management wanted the worker`s monies,...

Money was owed and competition was getting fiercer, we are in the midsts of a world slow-down, the race to bottom, corporate`s lowering the bar over and over again, here in Canada, the betrayal of Aveos employees, aircraft maintenance outsourced to South America, wages lowered by a factor 10...No inspections, no paper trail, no standards..Caterpillar too left for cheaper labour, betrayal after betrayal, now miners, coming from mining death capital of the world China, now coming here to die, finder-fees, room and board and a cone of silence, come to Canada to work, to die, and at half-price or less...

Caterpillar, Air Canada and British Columbia firms just shit on us, gave us the finger, bit by bit corporate whores are changing the playing field and altering the rules, decades of workers gains are being eroded at an astonishing rate while corporate profits surge, and as for our fearless leaders, Stephen Treason Harper and our own BC Liberal team of Facists have willingly and with malice sold us out, without a whimper Aveos, Air Canada, Caterpillar, pushed Canada`s labour laws to new lows..

And our politicians applauded


Caterpillar locks out 420 workers at London plant

Published on Monday January 02, 2012

The Canadian Press
62 Comments
LONDON, ONT. — Locomotive maker Electro-Motive began the new year by locking out CAW members at its plant in London, Ont.
Contract talks collapsed last week after the company issued a final offer that would cut the wages of union members in half, eliminate pensions and gut other benefits.
The previous contract for the more than 420 CAW members expired at the start of 2012, and the union set up picket lines at the plant Sunday evening.
Electro-Motive is owned by heavy equipment giant Caterpillar through its Progress Rail subsidiary. Caterpillar has a long history of playing hard ball with unions.
CAW president Ken Lewenza issued a statement blaming corporate greed for the lockout, calling it a serious attack on working people, their families and the greater London area.
“Caterpillar may be one of the richest corporations to ask for the deepest of cuts,” he said.
Progress Rail, which also produces diesel-electric locomotives, opened a plant in Muncie, Ind., in October, leading to speculation it intends to relocate the London operation there to benefit from Washington's Buy American policies.
The CAW is asking the federal government to disclose the terms and commitments made during the 2010 purchase of Electro-Motive by Caterpillar, under the Investment Canada Act.
Ontario Federation of Labour president Sid Ryan says Ontario's labour movement is ready to mobilize to help the CAW stop scabs from crossing picket lines at the London plant.
“Workers across the province are angry and feel betrayed by their government and they are ready to fight together to defend good jobs,” he said."

__________
Caterpillar despite making $billions in profits sold out it`s Canadian workers, it also sold out it`s American workers..


Betrayal at Caterpillar

22 August 2012
"Last Friday, after a bitter three-and-a-half month strike, 780 workers at Caterpillar’s Joliet, Illinois plant voted by a narrow margin to accept a brutal concessions contract pushed through by the International Association of Machinists (IAM). With nearly 40 percent of the workers abstaining, the vote was an expression not of support, but of disgust at the treachery of the union leadership.
The contract included virtually everything the company had demanded in an earlier proposal the workers voted down in May. They now face an estimated 20 percent reduction in real wages over the course of the six-year contract, as well as cuts in pensions and health care benefits.
Caterpillar insisted on slashing the workers’ wages despite the fact that it posted a record profit of $1.7 billion in the second quarter of this year, a 67 percent increase over the previous year. CEO Douglas Oberhelman took in $16.9 million in 2011, a 60 percent increase from the year before.
The Caterpillar struggle drew national attention and was closely followed by the US corporate elite. As the New York Times noted in a front-page article July 22, “it has become a test case in American labor relations” because the company is “seeking steep concessions from its workers even when business is booming.”

 http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/pers-a22.shtml


http://www.tubagroupbd.net/Profile/FACTORY%20PROFILE%20OF%20TUBA%20GROUP.pdf

Remember this line from the very first paragraph of this post..

"and let me be clear, there are a hundred other countries we could look to and point fingers at.."

But why bother, the perpetrators of this crime, perpetrators of these crimes are you and me, go into Wallmart and buy those $20 dollar shoes, go into that polling station and vote for Stephen Harper or Christy Clark, vote for the lowest denominator, vote for selling out our country..

Let the party of the workers be damned, Socialist hordes at the gate pull out the bazooka and press the trigger..Listen to those attack ads three years before the next election, listen to Christy Clark cite Joe McCarthy, listen to Michael Campbell and the Fraser institute and your Grandchildren too will be working behind guarded gates..



The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open









Chinese Tigers Playing with Canadian Sheep(updated October 4th)


The curse of Asia, LNG prosperity fantasy, it amazes me that so-called educated people are so stupid, sure enough many people aren`t blessed with critical thought processes but one doesn`t have to be smart to remember the not so-recent past.

At one-time North America was the electronic manufacturing capital of the world then Japan entered the market and things changed, bit by bit Corporations left the US of A and moved to cheaper labour markets, first Mexico, then Korea now China with their labour laws and zero environmental standards took over almost all electronic manufacturing, now they produce everything from flashlights to Starbucks coffee cups, everything is made in China, this domination has led a race to the bottom, electronic goods built so cheaply that even small repair businesses in the west have had to close shop, TV repairs obsolete, video repair obsolete, parts for repair are almost as expensive as a brand new replacement, in other words, throw away technology when it fails...

Vaughn Palmer has written another article on the need to rush into the building of  LNG terminals, his third in short order, Vaughn is stressing the importance of rushing in before the window of opportunity closes....Sorry Vaughn, the window was never even opened, the Chinese merely fogged up the glass with hot air dreams.

Vaughn talks about how Australia is way ahead of us in LNG exporting, they too are expanding operations to satiate the Asian market, Russia too, and Vaughn Palmer is correct when he talks about a north American glut of natural gas, with new hydro-fracking shale gas is available in quantity everywhere, thus the North American price has plummeted to prices not seen in a decade, current prices EnCana gas and other producers in Canada make zero money on extracting it, the Province too, $3:00 per unit is the rock-bottom price for making money on this finite resource....right now the price is $2;40

I have studied the LNG market, I also studied the Chinese technique of tip-toeing into a market and in a few short years they dominate it, right now Super tanking business is in the tank, vessels are losing money, the Chinese have bought up most of the super tankers and are buying 80 more new vessels, they`re single handedly taking over the shipping game, phony subsidies from the regime in Bejiing create the illusion of profit when none exists....Even Sinopec and Petro-China are losing $billions subsidizing their domestic driver`s gasoline and diesel, nothing is as it seems in China.
______________________________________________________
"China’s plan for 80 super tankers worries owners

Beijing’s goal to transport half its oil imports on its own ships brings huge problems for foreign fleets

Keith Wallis in Boao, Hainan Island
07 November 2011

Plans by mainland ship owners to order up to 80 super tankers would be disastrous for foreign ship owners who would likely see charter rates plunge and vessels left idle, a senior shipping industry figure warned.

Torben Skaanild, secretary general of the Baltic and International Maritime Council (Bimco), said if all 80 ships were ordered “it would kill the tanker market for years - it would be a catastrophe”.

Skaanild was speaking on the sidelines of the World Shipping (China) summit at Boao on Hainan Island on Friday about renewed speculation that China Ocean Shipping (Cosco) and China Shipping Development as well as other mainland owners intended to embark on an ordering frenzy for new tankers. This was to ensure mainland ship owners met Beijing’s target that 50 per cent of China’s oil imports should be carried on its own ships by 2015.

Figures from China’s customs bureau show the mainland imported 130 million tonnes of crude oil in the first half of this year, equivalent to 434 super tanker shipments, and up 7 per cent year on year.

Moves to acquire a further 80 very large crude carriers (VLCCs) would more than double the existing combined fleet of China’s four largest ship owners, who together control 56 super tankers each of about 300,000 deadweight tonnes.

Based on existing orders, China Shipping Development plans to add a further three VLCCs to its fleet by 2013 and Nanjing Tanker Corporation, part of Sinotrans and the China Shipping Company, will take delivery of a further 10 large tankers by the end of next year. They are among 30 super tankers on order to Chinese ship owners.

Captain Wei Jiafu, Cosco chairman, confirmed that mainland ship owners would acquire a further 80 VLCCs over the next four years.

Explaining Cosco’s strategy, he said it was likely to form shipping joint ventures with mainland oil companies such as China National Petroleum (PetroChina), China Petrochemical (Sinopec) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). These joint ventures were likely to order new tonnage.

Skaanild said some independent owners were worried about the impact on the crude oil tanker market if China went through with its tanker-owning target. Bimco, which had 900 owners as members who controlled 66 per cent of global merchant ship tonnage, believed in free competition, he said, “but we have to express our concern”.

With ship owners facing the worst crisis for years as too many vessels chase fewer cargoes, Skaanild said some owners would not survive, so there would be plenty of ships to buy. Bimco’s position was that owners should not be building new ships.

Peter Sand, Bimco’s shipping analyst, said the VLCC market was in dire straits. “Last year, a modern VLCC earned US$37,929 per day, while year-to-date 2011 earnings are down 55 per cent at US$17,157 per day,” he said - an amount that barely covered operating costs. 

_____________________________________________________
I can`t help but laugh, the British Columbia government is drinking the Asian bubble tea, BC Liberals have sold Vaughn Palmer the juice too, BC Liberals are spouting the line that they will receive 4 to 5 times the North American price from Asian buyers....Now that`s funny, really it is.

Vaughn Palmer in his latest article also talks about the massive reserves of shale gas China itself has, it`s reported that China possess the largest supplies in the world, 5 times as much shale gas as North America, and it`s true...

_______________________________________________

"According to the US Energy Information Administration, China holds the largest reserves of shale gas in the world, enough to supply China for more than 300 years. There’s no current commercial production of shale gas in China, but several companies have exploratory projects underway, including Sinopec, PetroChina, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Chevron.
An official from CNPC commented that the compant has found shale gas in around 20 locations, with each able to produce over 10,000 cubic meters of gas per day. Reuters reported that Shell has found shale gas in China, a development that could cap imports in a market natural gas producers are hoping will drive demand. Shell has observes good primary production from its two vertical well. Chevron, which experienced a dry well in its first well has now found encouraging results in its second well.

China is poised to become the world’s largest producer of shale gas,"
 Huge Potential for Shale Gas in China | Derrick Petroleum Services
_______________________________________________
So here`s the deal or should I say, here`s the Chinese game, Australia is ramping up LNG export production, Qatar is Ramping up LNG export facilities, Russia is in the game too and let`s don`t forget the USA, everybody ramping up in a big rush to service Asia`s growing needs....

So what happens?...Everybody is chasing these enormous future profits and big LNG price from China, really, think about it, China has more gas than anyone else in the world, enough for 300 years yet these north American idiots think China is going to open up their wallets and pay a giant premium from us,  now that`s even funnier...

China has everyone right where they want em, chasing a fantasy, once LNG ramps up around the world China will be in a position to set the price, peg one country against another, in other words with that much LNG available domestically China merely has to look at their own reserves and the price will crash!...LNG exporters will be selling it at a loss, all that fracking pollution for peanuts...Where have we seen this play before.

And there is more, much more, let`s talk dirty tar sand oil...Currently the Tar sands use enough natural gas each day to heat 10 million homes, just imagine if the price of this gas was...

4 to 5 times the North American price, this LNG fantasy price the BC Government is drooling over...Well, what would that do to the price of extracting dirty tar sand oil from Alberta?...It would drive the price through the roof, right now the only reason the tar sands can be mined cheap is the low price of natural gas and free water and free land for 1000`s of miles of poison lakes.

China will have all the exporters cutting each others throat for the business, the price will go low and stay low, for China doesn`t need LNG from anyone, they have more than anyone, they need oil, cheap oil and that means cheap natural gas...

Only fools and their money think they can out fox the Chinese, they have done this to almost every industry and the BC Liberal Government and Canada is falling for it hook, line and sinker, those fools and their money will soon part.

There is one more issue with China not extracting their shale gas at this time, fracking requires billions and billions of gallons of water, China has over 300 million people now without fresh clean drinking water, they are also having severe droughts and most of their rivers have been poisoned, mind you the Chinese don`t care about poisoning their people but China is moving slow on fracking, from what I have read China will be dedicating some of its new nuclear facilities to power desalination plants from which China can turn vast amounts of salt water into fracking water...

CHINA The Government: drinking water for 32 million farmers, but ten times more are left without - Asia News

 CHINA For the Chinese, pollution and the environment top list of problems - Asia News

You can read Vaughn Palmer`s latest splash here, not much in it but hyperbole and Palmer`s subtle messaging, too bad Vaughn doesn`t know what he`s talking about.

The bottom line is this, with China holding the largest shale gas reserves in the world any thought of BC having China over a barrel and reliant on our natural gas is a joke....

Lastly, BC...if we had 3 LNG terminals humming away BC would deplete all our gas in 3 decades, China has 300 years worth of gas, China`s population is 50 times that of Canada, yet they have enough gas to supply their population for 300 years, how silly and sad that BC wants to exhaust our finite supplies for a short fantasy sugar rush.

China and Asia have taken over the electronics manufacturing, we can`t compete with their slave labour, same thing with shoes, clothes, housewares, food products, China also leads the world in intellectual property theft, human rights abuses, environmental crimes, counterfeit goods, cyber attacks, China is not investing in Canada they are buying it, whole operations, free trade zones, their own coal mine, their own workers, their own Chinese standards in Canada, a foreign country operating in Canada as if they own it, maybe they do...

My advice to the Province is build 1 LNG terminal and proceed slowly after that, I also suggest that CSIS maintain their diligence and watch the Federal Conservatives very closely.

And if Christy Clark or any Canadian politician thinks they can outsmart or wall China in well....

Whatever their smoking must be some good shit, perhaps that might be a better fiscal investment than playing reindeer games with Bejiing..



Updated here (October 3/2012), this story was written on February 8th/2012, and today October 4th/2012 the experts have come around, actually the experts might  have just plagiarized my this story, all of these BC economic advisors are now looking like fools, Christy Clark is really looking the fool....

Vaughn Palmer can explain it to you, in fact Vaughn Palmer might as well just put a link to my story(the above story) rather than waste written words, for there is nothing new, the scenario Vaughn talks about was already presented above and discussed below at The Straight Goods, on February 8th..

Here is Vaughn Palmer`s input


http://www.vancouversun.com/business/bc2035/Palmer+Clark+ever+more+ambitious+natural+plans+bump/7340278/story.html

And now we can ad Rafe Mair`s take......

 http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/11/26/Gaseous-Dreams/

Enjoy the reads, I mean the original read, the one above.

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open