Canada has lost $196 billion in resource projects

[Argus]

Is anyone really surprised? When you have governments determined to run every resource projects through multiple years of red tape, hearings and bureaucratic hoops you're going to lose out on a lot of economic activity.

New report shows billions in missed natural resource opportunities

SecondStreet.org, a new Canadian think tank, released a new policy brief today that shows over $196 billion in natural resource projects have been stalled or cancelled due (at least in part) to government policies over the past five years.

https://www.secondstreet.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Policy-Brief-–-Natural-Resource-Development-–-Final-ENG.pdf

[Shady]

Exactly right.  It’s one of the reasons our economy is sputtering while the American economy is humming along.  They’ve done the complete opposite when it comes to resource projects and construction projects.

[cannuck]

To be fair, NO mega billion dollar project is going to just get rubber stamped in ANY developed nation these days.  Of the nearly $200 Bn claimed, a huge chunk is Athabasca Sands projects that at this time/price are not practical, not to mention once you build them, there is no way to get the oil to tidewater to market.  Look at Sunshine, and realize that the bloat in "business geniuses" who could plan mega projects on $100 oil can't make it economically viable with $40 well head prices for heavy sours of any kind.  Amazing when you consider the "tipping point" for Athabasca oil came about 18 years ago when the price of WTI passed $17/bbl and everything in Ft. Mac came off of hold and charged ahead.

The same is true for LNG projects.  Gas is trading at about $2.50, sliding there from $5 over the last decade.  All of the excitement in that market came about 15 years ago when gas almost hit $20 and averaged well over $10.  The proponents lost a lot of their interest in putting billions at stake when the price "collapsed" (returned to historical normal that real O&G people have lived with for many decades.  A lot of this happened because of the frac'ing technologies developed in the Bakken shales that work equally well for releasing gas - giving many of the principals more production than they had planned from existing and new completions of their domestic properties.  Note that you can add a LOT of value to that gas by liquifying it, and $40 Bn of the list in question has been approved to bring gas from AB/BC border to Kitimat LNG facility. 

So 20% of the report's value has proven to be a done deal already.  Much of the rest will come when prices improve and someone figures out how to get AB heavy oil out of the Athabasca Sands economically and reliably.

[bush_cheney2004]

https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/look-how-much-foreign-investment-has-fled-canada-since-the-liberals-took-over

[egghead]

3 hours ago, cannuck said:

To be fair, NO mega billion dollar project is going to just get rubber stamped in ANY developed nation these days.  Of the nearly $200 Bn claimed, a huge chunk is Athabasca Sands projects that at this time/price are not practical, not to mention once you build them, there is no way to get the oil to tidewater to market.  Look at Sunshine, and realize that the bloat in "business geniuses" who could plan mega projects on $100 oil can't make it economically viable with $40 well head prices for heavy sours of any kind.  Amazing when you consider the "tipping point" for Athabasca oil came about 18 years ago when the price of WTI passed $17/bbl and everything in Ft. Mac came off of hold and charged ahead.

The same is true for LNG projects.  Gas is trading at about $2.50, sliding there from $5 over the last decade.  All of the excitement in that market came about 15 years ago when gas almost hit $20 and averaged well over $10.  The proponents lost a lot of their interest in putting billions at stake when the price "collapsed" (returned to historical normal that real O&G people have lived with for many decades.  A lot of this happened because of the frac'ing technologies developed in the Bakken shales that work equally well for releasing gas - giving many of the principals more production than they had planned from existing and new completions of their domestic properties.  Note that you can add a LOT of value to that gas by liquifying it, and $40 Bn of the list in question has been approved to bring gas from AB/BC border to Kitimat LNG facility. 

So 20% of the report's value has proven to be a done deal already.  Much of the rest will come when prices improve and someone figures out how to get AB heavy oil out of the Athabasca Sands economically and reliably.

ANyway, do you know that it is a felony for protesting a pipeline in Texas? The report's main point is that our government is destroying canadians livelihood.

[Argus]

Productivity in the US rose 2%. In Canada it rose 0.3%

Wages are rising in the U.S. but stagnant here. This is because in the US, with full employment, employers are buying more efficient devices and computers to increase productivity while increasing wages. In Canada, however, this is not happening. Wages are not rising. Employers simply bring in cheap foreign workers to keep wages down so don't bother to invest in better equipment or processes. Plus, of course, the cost of red tape, of bureaucracy, is higher here and increasing, along with taxes. All of that is decreasing in the US.

Edited June 5, 2019 by Argus

[cannuck]

22 hours ago, egghead said:

ANyway, do you know that it is a felony for protesting a pipeline in Texas? The report's main point is that our government is destroying canadians livelihood.

Yes, I am very aware of the legal and societal attitude of US states (or oldest head office is in WY) towards resource industries, particularly petroleum.

[cannuck]

7 hours ago, Argus said:

Productivity in the US rose 2%. In Canada it rose 0.3%

Wages are rising in the U.S. but stagnant here. This is because in the US, with full employment, employers are buying more efficient devices and computers to increase productivity while increasing wages. In Canada, however, this is not happening. Wages are not rising. Employers simply bring in cheap foreign workers to keep wages down so don't bother to invest in better equipment or processes. Plus, of course, the cost of red tape, of bureaucracy, is higher here and increasing, along with taxes. All of that is decreasing in the US.

Problem is: we are not bringing in this cheap labour to produce anything, as we really DON'T produce much any more.  They are providing services...and not doing it very well.

[cougar]

On 6/4/2019 at 5:17 PM, Argus said:

Canada has lost $196 billion in resource projects

 

This is what typical capitalist propaganda looks like.  Nothing is "LOST"; because it was never there.

The actual proposal under those projects is this: 

"We can sell your forests, oil, gas and metals and this will bring us $196 billion.  In the process we will destroy your favorite rivers, mountains, ocean resorts; we will kill the wildlife, cause an environmental catastrophe like the World has never known; wipe out your tourist industry, fishing industry and farming; we will contaminate your water sources, flood your houses or cause severe droughts and wild fires.  But you vote for our projects because they are good for Canada ." (hi-hi-hi , this patriotic spin fools them all the time).

[taxme]

Has no one learned by now that all our leftist liberal politicians work for one thing only? Screw with we the people's livelihood and keep trying to keep them broke and poor by creating more government, more red tape, more taxes, and of course make life difficult and hard as much as possible for all the pro free enterprise people out there who would like to make a go of it and make plenty of money. Sure one  is allowed to start up a business but our dear leader politicians will make it very difficult for you to pretty much get anywhere especially to get rich. Citizen's with money are a danger to their political well being. With money we the people are able to fight the government. Broke and no money means one cannot fight the government. 

This country is so rich in resources but we have allowed the environ"mental"ists", native Indians, special minority interest groups, and of course anti-people leftist liberal politicians to run rampant over us and try every day to make life totally miserable for we the people. Our Canadian low dollar(peso)says it all. Stop trying to deny the fact that our dear leaders are responsible for the mess and poverty and hunger that goes on in this country every day. Government will never be the solution, only just the problem.

Canada needs less government, less red tape, less taxes, less minority special interest groups influence, and plenty more freedom otherwise Canada will never get to see it's full potential and wealth that $196 billion from resource projects could bring and do for Canada and Canadians. There are just to many doom and gloom people running and ruining this nation called Canada. They just always want to make everything appear pessimistic rather than optimistic to try and make Canada great again. Those losers need to get the hell out of here. If they believe in socialism or communism than go live in one of those countries. 

Vote Maxine Bernier of the People's Party of Canada to help make Canada great again. As far as I am concerned, Bernier is Canada's last real hope. All the rest are hopeless. 

[Argus]

17 hours ago, cougar said:

This is what typical capitalist propaganda looks like.  Nothing is "LOST"; because it was never there.

You're free to go live in a cave and heat it with twigs and dead branches. The rest of us, however, need economic activity to pay for our way in life.

[cougar]

6 hours ago, Argus said:

You're free to go live in a cave and heat it with twigs and dead branches. The rest of us, however, need economic activity to pay for our way in life.

Again wrong!   We do not have to live in caves.  We just do not have to ship our resources to China and destroy our environment while doing so.

We need to manufacture close to where the resources are coming from and use the products again close to those places.

With those multi-billion dollar projects Canada starts looking like a low-end developing country that can do nothing better than export raw materials.

[Dougie93]

Speech banning and gun grabbing are obviously the most dangerous dogmas of the totalitarian collectivist left.

In terms of them destroying the Alberta hydrocarbon economy,  I can honestly do without it.

Economic nationalism is foolish, I'd much rather invest in American shale,  Alberta bitumen is a dog with fleas.

If Canadians simply invested in America, they wouldn't need government handouts and make work jobs, because they would be independently wealthy.

The same iron curtain erected to keep you from true freedom is also trying to lock you in by making economic nationalist appeals.

Which is what the Soviet Union did.   I wouldn't put much stock in that, why cut your own economic throats for the totalitarian collectivists in government?

It might make sense for the Americans to be patriotic about their economy, but it doesn't make sense to cling to a mickey mouse outfit like Canada.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Dougie93

[Argus]

11 hours ago, cougar said:

Again wrong!   We do not have to live in caves.  We just do not have to ship our resources to China and destroy our environment while doing so.

We need to manufacture close to where the resources are coming from and use the products again close to those places.

With those multi-billion dollar projects Canada starts looking like a low-end developing country that can do nothing better than export raw materials.

Why is the people with these idiotic beliefs are always people with zero familiarity with economics, production, manufacturing or any other aspect of business?

Oh wait. I just answered my own question...

Edited June 7, 2019 by Argus

[cougar]

10 hours ago, Argus said:

Why is the people with these idiotic beliefs are always people with zero familiarity with economics, production, manufacturing or any other aspect of business?

Oh wait. I just answered my own question...

I am curious what you personally get out of these projects?  Are you employed in the Oil and Gas?  A miner or a logger?

You can throw all the insults you like; I can answer with the same, except I will not bother.

[cannuck]

11 hours ago, Argus said:

Why is the people with these idiotic beliefs are always people with zero familiarity with economics, production, manufacturing or any other aspect of business?

Oh wait. I just answered my own question...

Problem is: some of these economic nationalists are business people very familiar with economics who manufacture goods and produce resources.

[Dougie93]

11 hours ago, cannuck said:

Problem is: some of these economic nationalists are business people very familiar with economics who manufacture goods and produce resources.

In a Company Town, buying influence is a business model unto itself.

In many cases it is foreign interests making economic nationalist appeals to the rubes,  masking themselves behind an ostensibly local facade.

Leads to a lot of Ponzi-esque pumping and dumping, wave a maple leaf in their faces, then take the money and get the heck out of Dodge.

As excessive government intervention forces me to be a disaster capitalist, I won't say I wouldn't take the profits from it myself.

It's not my preference, but Milton Friedman's Hong Kong is slipping away and dissipating into a distant aspirational dream at this juncture.

Without the United Kingdom Strategic Nuclear Deterrent as its bulwark, Hong Kong itself is falling to the Stalinist's in Beijing, a new Bamboo Curtain.

On the bright side, cold war is a profit center, defense contractors are recession proof.

15 minutes notice to launch on warning permanent hair trigger alert, live in the now, there is no future.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Dougie93

[Argus]

15 hours ago, cougar said:

I am curious what you personally get out of these projects?  Are you employed in the Oil and Gas?  A miner or a logger?

You can throw all the insults you like; I can answer with the same, except I will not bother.

I am self-employed, and heading towards retirement. I live in Ontario and have never had anything to do with any resource industry. I merely have an interest in the economic strength and prosperity of Canada.

[cougar]

7 hours ago, Argus said:

I am self-employed, and heading towards retirement. I live in Ontario and have never had anything to do with any resource industry. I merely have an interest in the economic strength and prosperity of Canada.

Oh, boy, then you call my beliefs idiotic.

[cannuck]

8 hours ago, Argus said:

I am self-employed, and heading towards retirement. I live in Ontario and have never had anything to do with any resource industry. I merely have an interest in the economic strength and prosperity of Canada.

Then you need to realize that Canada has no economic strength...at least none that is coming from creating wealth.  Instead, all we seem to do is sell of our finite resources and hope that some magic trick of Casino Capitalism is going to magically lift us up by our own bootstraps.

[Argus]

17 hours ago, cougar said:

Oh, boy, then you call my beliefs idiotic.

Only the idiotic ones.

[Argus]

16 hours ago, cannuck said:

Then you need to realize that Canada has no economic strength...at least none that is coming from creating wealth.  Instead, all we seem to do is sell of our finite resources and hope that some magic trick of Casino Capitalism is going to magically lift us up by our own bootstraps.

So what do you believe we should do? Stop selling resources? And do what instead?

[cougar]

1 hour ago, Argus said:

So what do you believe we should do? Stop selling resources? And do what instead?

and start processing them, turning them into products and selling those products to China!

[Argus]

2 hours ago, cougar said:

and start processing them, turning them into products and selling those products to China!

Why the hell would China want to buy something we make here for three times the price of the same item made there? Why would anyone else?

[cannuck]

6 hours ago, Argus said:

So what do you believe we should do? Stop selling resources? And do what instead?

Add value to resources.   It is the ONLY way wealth is created.  We have access to the wealthiest (about to fall to second wealthiest) market on Earth, just across a relatively open border, and we have huge potential markets in Yurp and MENA.

Edited June 10, 2019 by cannuck