Friday, March 21, 2014

Ethical Oil v. Environmentalists...Where The Real Big (Foreign) Money Is.

ThingsGoBetterWith
KochVille


Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin have the old-fashioned investigatory journo-story in the WaPo. Here is their lede:


You might expect the biggest lease owner in Canada's oil sands, or tar sands, to be one of the international oil giants, like Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell. But that isn't the case. The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David.

The Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres -- an area nearly the size of Delaware -- in the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, according to an activist group that studied Alberta provincial records. The Post confirmed the group’s findings with Alberta Energy, the provincial government’s ministry of energy. Separately, industry sources familiar with oil sands leases said Koch’s lease holdings could be closer to two million acres....


Gosh.

Wonder what the fabulists and the screamers will have to say about this?



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5 comments:

Grant G said...

Guess who crawled out from under a rock to play LNG unicorn games?

http://www.steelheadlng.com/board-of-directors/

Apparently, this financial group has $billions of dollars under management, including pension funds, this group is "looking at 5 or 6 locations for an LMG plant"

This group has decided whether to have on onland facility or a floating LNG plant...

Their website is rather blank, but, they do claim to know BC well, know how to deal with First Nations, claim to know the BC Government well...

This group has no pipeline route planned(yet), this group has NO LEASED gas land, has no feed stock gas from the gas fields under contract.

Anywho, Global BC, the BC Liberal unicorn games promotional TV station played it up as PROOF an LNG windfall was a coming to wonderland..

"Steelhead LNG’s investors are well-pocketed with billions under management, according to a press release. They include KERN Partners, a Calgary-based energy sector private equity firm funded by a group of pension funds, along with a number of university endowments, foundations, and institutions.

There are over 13 applicants for plants along B.C.’s coast, all of whom have international operations. Estimated costs in the LNG market have risen in the last two years, and Apache Corp., the first company to formally apply for a license, announced earlier this year they were looking to sell part of their interest in a potential LNG plant.

However, Kuzemko says their proposal won’t change based on global LNG trends.

“We’re not competing with those [international companies]. We have a different proposition. We want to make B.C. a success for LNG. Our sites don’t compete with these other great companies overseas,” he says.

“For us, if the project works here, we will make it happen, we won’t compare it to other places…and it’ll be done with Canadian finances, Canadian-staffed on the whole, and based in Vancouver.”


http://globalnews.ca/news/1215877/first-b-c-company-joins-the-lng-fray/


Hmmm, Geoff Plant again...

LNG really must be true if hedge funds are prepared to compete with multi-national energy companies..

Oh, by the way, the timing of the reporting of this SERIOUS(?) proposal came to light on the same day Jack Mintz and Japan rocked the BC Liberal taxation/royalty framework.

Cheers

Grant G said...

Typo error above..

"This group hasn`t decided whether to have an on-land facility or a floating LNG plant"

Still on my first cup of coffee Ross K..my typo mistake

RossK said...

No worries Grant--

As always, thanks for additional insight and info.

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ron wilton said...

The brothers K are the new dinosaurs roaming the badlands.

In addition to financing most, if not all, climate change deniers in the U.S and Canadian governments and elsewhere, the brothers own most, if not all the gulf refineries capable of 'developing' the albertabit which they stand to make billions more annually when KXL gets the 'green' light.

Their little brother also 'owns' the companies that flood China with the sideshoe foul burning petcoke that is fuelling the mass die offs in China via air polution.

The world was a better place before they devolved and hopefully we can make it a better place after they once again go extinct.

Hopefully they will take harper with them.

Anonymous said...

Geoff boy wasn't out of a job for long now was he. Heenan Blaikie went under.

It never ceases to amaze me that these goofs keep showing up. But then again, all those connections while he was a lieberal in government. Hmm, I wonder if this would be lobbying? No, they're paying him as a director. Director of what? Who knows. But they're all like the Everready bunny, they just keep going and going and going.