HOUSTON \u2014 Middle Eastern and Asian investors have expressed early-stage interest in a potential new crude oil pipeline in Canada and could become minority owners if such a project \u200cgoes ahead, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said on Monday.<\/p>\n
Alberta, Canada\u2019s main oil-producing province, has been exploring the \u200cfeasibility of a new one-million-barrel-per-day crude oil pipeline to British Columbia\u2019s northwest coast to increase exports to Asia, but no private-sector company has committed \u200bto building a new pipeline yet.<\/p>\n
Canadian oil companies hope to boost sales to Asia in the coming years to diversify away from the United States, which currently buys 90 per cent of Canada\u2019s oil in part due to ongoing tensions between the longtime allies since the return of U.S. President Donald Trump to the White House.<\/p>\n
Global energy investors are increasingly interested in the world\u2019s \u200cfourth-largest oil producer as a safe haven \u2060in the face of the war in Iran and geopolitical turmoil, said Smith, speaking to reporters at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston.<\/p>\n
The Iran war has bolstered global demand \u2060for Canadian oil and gas, and Canada agreed last week to support the International Energy Agency\u2019s oil release with 23.6 million barrels from domestic producers.<\/p>\n
Alberta has been talking to Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds as well as Asian investors, she said, and \u200bexpects foreign \u200bcapital to emerge if Canada approves a new oil pipeline \u200bfor federal fast-tracking. \u201cProbably not a majority stake, but \u200cat least a substantial stake. Maybe 15 or 30 per cent,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
The Alberta government will submit a formal pipeline proposal to the federal government in June, Smith said. If the project is approved for fast-tracking, that will increase the likelihood that a private sector proponent will come forward, she said.<\/p>\n
Previous Canadian pipeline projects aimed at increasing the country\u2019s oil export capacity have been plagued by political and regulatory hurdles. Prime Minister Mark Carney has promised to change that, pledging a \u200cclear and efficient approval process that will enable a new pipeline \u200bto be constructed and financed by the private sector.<\/p>\n
While regulatory certainty is \u200bimportant, Smith said, a new pipeline also hinges \u200bon the results of ongoing negotiations between Alberta, Canada and the oil sands industry on carbon \u200cpricing policy.<\/p>\n
The Carney government has pledged to strengthen \u200bCanada\u2019s industrial carbon pricing regime, \u200bbut Smith said Canada\u2019s oil industry cannot increase production if the new system is too stringent, putting Canadian oil companies at a competitive disadvantage to their U.S. competitors.<\/p>\n
Alberta and the federal government committed this fall to \u200breaching an agreement on carbon pricing by \u200cApril 1. But a Reuters report last week cited industry sources who said a deal will not \u200bbe struck by the deadline, as Canada\u2019s oil sands companies are pushing back against the federal \u200bproposal.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Houston; editing by David Gaffen)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON \u2014 Middle Eastern and Asian investors have expressed early-stage interest in a potential new crude oil pipeline…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[712,49,48,295,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-556238","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-environment","12":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}