Energy projects and safety top priorities for ministers
OTTAWA — Canada’s energy and mines ministers gather this weekend at a “pivotal” time for the natural resources sector and Canadian economy, looking to find common ground on issues including the TransCanada west-east pipeline project and safe transport of petroleum products.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver will join his provincial and territorial counterparts in Yellowknife, N.W.T., on the weekend and early next week for their annual meeting, at a time the energy and mining sectors face significant challenges around earning social licence, but also enormous opportunity to capitalize on the country’s resource bounty.
Oliver, who will chair the meetings from Sunday to Tuesday, said he expects ministers will discuss regulatory reform, infrastructure development, energy innovation technologies, as well as mandatory reporting for Canadian extractive companies.
Top of mind for many ministers is TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline project that would ship western Canadian oil — including oilsands crude — from Alberta eastward to refineries in Quebec and Atlantic Canada. The pipeline would terminate at the deepwater port and Irving Oil refinery in Saint John, N.B. — the largest refinery in the country — where the product could be exported to foreign markets.
The ministers are expected to review a new Senate report that urges the government to improve safety standards for transporting hazardous goods, following some recent pipeline spills and the Lac-Megantic rail disaster.
They’ll also likely discuss a report released Friday by the Alberta government that said pipeline safety regulations in that province, while among the best in Canada, are inadequate when oil-bearing lines get close to rivers and creeks.
Obviously this is a collaborative approach
ALBERTA’S KEN HUGHES
“Canada faces a pivotal moment in natural resource market diversification and infrastructure development, and the imperative of creating the conditions necessary to capture that responsibility,” Oliver said in an interview with Postmedia News. “Collaboration at all levels and in the provinces and between the federal government and the provinces and territories is crucial.”
The federal government and a number of provinces, including Alberta and New Brunswick, support a pan-Canadian pipeline to get oil and gas to new markets.
However, the Ontario and Quebec governments are raising some safety and environmental concerns with the Energy East project, and want to know how their provinces will benefit economi- cally from it.
The Ontario Liberal government is expected to intervene in regulatory hearings on the project to ensure the company addresses environmental and safety concerns.
Ontario Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli was unavailable for an interview, but said in a statement that “dialogue between all levels of government, stakeholders and the public on energy and mining matters is more important than ever.”
The 1.1-million-barrels-perday project would transport crude oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan to refineries in Quebec and New Brunswick.
Under the $12-billion plan, TransCanada will convert approximately 3,000 kilometres of existing natural gas pipeline and construct an additional 1,400 kilometres to the refinery and a new deepwater marine terminal in Saint John.
Concerns, however, have been raised about the safety of shipping oilsands crude such a far distance through aging pipelines.
Alberta Energy Minister Ken Hughes said he’ll share the results of the province’s pipeline review with other ministers so the industry and all jurisdictions can improve their safety performance and reduce the risk of incidents.
“Obviously this is a collaborative approach,” Hughes said Friday.
Indeed, the potential risks of transporting petroleum products, including by rail and pipeline, is garnering greater attention following the LacMegantic disaster and the Sen- ate committee report released this week on transportation of hazardous goods such as petroleum products.
The committee is calling on the federal government to conduct an independent review of the transportation of hazardous goods by rail. The report includes 13 recommendations to improve the safety of transporting energy by pipelines, rail and marine tankers.
Saskatchewan Energy Minister Tim McMillan said issues like the Lac-Megantic disaster and Energy East project are high on the public agenda, and “that certainly follows through to those who represent the people of our country.”
“People in our province expect that any development, any new mine, new energy project, or transportation project is all handled with the highest regard for safety, the highest standards for environmental responsibility,” McMillan said.
Transportation of oil and gas is a key issue for provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, he said, because they’re producing increasing amounts of oil that will need to be moved across Canada, the United States and into other foreign markets.
But no single project is a panacea for transportation bottlenecks and getting the products to market, he said.
“We can’t use it ourselves entirely, so transporting it south, east, west are all very important to us. We’re all Canadians and that conversation is certainly ongoing,” he said.