Oil and gas revenues can be used by tyrannies, autocracies and dictatorships to oppress their populations
Why would consumers treat tyranny oil differently than blood diamonds or clothing made by child labour? One of the more bizarre reactions to bare facts came recently after a colleague and I analyzed oil-and-gas-producing countries and their degree of freedom – the Tyranny Index, as we labelled it. Some argued such tracking is irrelevant because…
The need to generate cash, along with political pressure, compelled the Saudis to make some bitter decisions
Saudi Arabia has capitulated. A few moves here and there, in Washington and elsewhere, made the trick work. Saudi Arabia made a surprise announcement last week that it would cut its crude oil output by a further one million barrels per day (bpd) from planned June levels, “voluntarily.” This takes the total Saudi production cuts…
Stores will open again, cars and trucks will begin to run and planes will fly. Our lives will continue – and life takes energy
Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May recently said “oil is dead” and her “heart bleeds for people who believe the sector is going to come back.” It’s foolish to assert “oil is dead” at any time, but it’s particularly ignorant to say it in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis. Canadians are relying on…
At the heart of the COVID-19 crisis sits the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corp. and its low-income borrowers
The shutdowns ordered by Canadian governments to slow the spread of COVID-19 have caused unemployment to leap. And put mortgages in peril. Many of the millions of workers laid off have been low-income and lower-middle-income earners. They’re just the sort of people who qualify for home mortgages insured by the federal Canada Mortgage and Housing…
Despite claims by some that ‘oil is dead’ and that the sector is heavily subsidized, the evidence suggests otherwise
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre In the ongoing debate over whether Canada’s oil and natural gas industry will or should survive, one argument often advanced is the notion that oil and gas activity in Canada survives only due to massive subsidies from taxpayers. The debate has been fuelled recently by comments from…
With the world beginning to get back on its wheels, a ‘new normal’ is set to emerge. But what will new normal look like – particularly, will crude oil demand ever return to pre-pandemic levels? Our streets are not as empty as they were just a short while ago. Freeway traffic is rising. Prices at…
Canada’s recovery will depend on government policies that actively encourage, rather than impede, resource investment
Albertans are living a five-year nightmare that just keeps getting worse. The nightmare started in 2015 when newly-elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Gerald Butts, head of the Canadian arm of the anti-fossil-fuel World Wildlife Fund, as his principal secretary and key adviser. A year later, Trudeau cancelled the previously approved Northern Gateway Pipeline destined…
The authors of a letter to Trudeau say most aid should be expedited but for oil companies, which need to be trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare
When professors around the country were busy figuring ways to deliver their classes online, two faculty members at the University of Alberta wrote a letter and enlisted the endorsement of 200-plus of their leisured colleagues at 33 universities in Canada. A crisis must not be wasted. From the privileged positions of publicly-paid jobs, the Alberta…
Canada’s energy sector is facing unprecedented challenges as oil demand collapses as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The toll is already visible, with layoffs coming at the worst possible time for families, as companies cut spending and put growth plans on hold in order to survive. In this challenging time, anti-oil activists pour gasoline…
The world oil market seems to be climbing out of the depths. Yet questions linger. And another crude oil price rout could be just around the corner. The price of oil futures contracts could go to zero again, even faster than the May contracts fell, says CNBC’s Jim Cramer. The oil glut is dominating the…
Climate warriors spend a great deal of time condemning current practices without offering realistic solutions
In the past several months, we’ve heard dire and angry imprecations and accusations from the new climate crusaders. They demand total obeisance to their escalating demands. Any critics to their approach to catastrophic global warming are denounced as deniers or heretics. A new religious-political-social movement has sprung out of this trend: Extinction Rebellion, with the…
Neither the lockdown not government diktat will end our dependence on fossil fuels for quite some time
By Mark Milke and Lennie Kaplan Canadian Energy Centre In 1897 while in London in the midst of a worldwide speaking tour, American author Mark Twain became the subject of rumours back home that he was dead. To discover the truth, a reporter from the New York Journal wrote to Twain to ask if he…
Province struggles to deal with a devastating drop in oil prices, the impact of COVID-19 and the federal agenda to kill the industry
Three concurrent and independent elements are preventing Alberta from realizing the full potential of its energy resources. It’s generally said that good things come in threes. The Latin expression ‘omne trium perfectum’ conveys the idea that things that come in threes are more complete. The expression has an optimistic ring – but not for Alberta’s…
By Niels Veldhuis and Elmira Aliakbari The Fraser Institute After weeks of delay, the federal government finally announced its aid package for the energy sector. To say it’s underwhelming would be an understatement. More than anything, the package announced on Friday confirms that the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sees one of Canada’s most…
Oil prices have taken a catastrophic drop. Unemployment numbers are through the roof. Bankruptcies are raising their ugly heads
Monday was the equivalent of a major financial nightmare for the U.S. economy. Oil futures for West Texas crude went below zero for the first time in history and finished at US-$37.63 a barrel. Don’t rub your eyes too hard. That’s a minus, not a plus, next to the dollar figure. What does this mean?…
Why would consumers treat tyranny oil differently than blood diamonds or clothing made by child labour? One of the more bizarre reactions to bare facts came recently after a colleague and I analyzed oil-and-gas-producing countries and their degree of freedom – the Tyranny Index, as we labelled it. Some argued such tracking is irrelevant because…
