An oil leak right in Vancouver harbour, with slicks washing up on the pristine shores of English Bay and Stanley Park — that certainly gets voters paying attention to the environment in an election year. April’s spill from a cargo ship’s own fuel tank was small as these things go — less than 3,000 litres, […]
Comment: Pipelines vs rail cars
The fiery derailment of two trains carrying crude oil in the space of three days underscores the worrisome impact of such incidents. Images of huge fireballs from the crash of an oil train in West Virginia will have brought back memories for many Canadians of the Lac-Megantic disaster where 47 people died. Two days before the West […]
Can new technology ease concerns over pipeline safety?
Who could have ever imagined that North America would surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest producer of oil and natural gas liquids? A decade ago, that would have seemed laughable. Yet that’s exactly what has happened; and it’s not just Saudi Arabia that has been left in North America’s dust — Russia has, too. […]
Comment: How a new ‘golden rule’ is shaping oil and gas projects
“Remember the Golden Rule,” said the stunted king from the cartoon The Wizard of Id, “whoever has the gold, makes the rules.” A growing number of institutional investors are heeding the king of Id’s sarcastic “golden rule.” But unlike Parker and Hart’s irreverent cartoon, the real-life outcome of shareholder activism – the influence of the […]
Train car demand
While environmentalists and others are battling new pipelines around North America – the amount of train traffic hauling Alberta crude is on the rise. This may become more of a permanent fixture. An indication of this. One company, Cenovus, has appointed its first ever vice-president of rail operations. So far the Calgary-based company has shipped […]
Comment: Are governments looking out after our best interest?
I particularly don’t like when governments work in secret. Governments feed us a lot of malarkey about why secrecy is essential. Here are some government plans developing in secret that everyone should know about. In Ottawa, 400 delegates from Pacific Rim countries spent time this month negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) – the latest […]
Landmark ruling could impact pipeline projects and more
It was unanimous. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 8-0 recognizing the right of the Tsilhqot’in to a specific tract of land in the B.C. Interior. The director of the Indigenous Legal Studies Program at the University of British Columbia law school says it’s too early to definitively say what the impact will be. Gordon […]