Premiers’ quarrel over resource revenue threatens to scuttle pipeline – by Josh Wingrove and Jane Taber (Globe and Mail – July 24, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Edmonton and Halifax — A standoff between premiers has left the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline in peril, with Alberta Premier Alison Redford saying she won’t share any resource revenue and B.C. premier Christy Clark saying she’ll block the project without more cash.

Speaking Tuesday morning at an annual pancake breakfast at the Alberta legislature, Ms. Redford rebuffed B.C.’s day-old demand that more money – an unspecified “fair share” – be included if it’s to support the proposed $6-billion pipeline, which would carry Alberta oil to the B.C. coast for shipment to Asia.

“We will not share royalties, and I’ve seen nothing else proposed, and would not be prepared to consider anything else at this point in time,” the Alberta premier said.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark said she was taken aback by the comments, and repeated that Northern Gateway won’t go through without a slice of royalties. “If Alberta is not willing to even sit down and talk, then it stops here,” Ms. Clark vowed.

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SEC conflict minerals rule foot-dragging a nightmare-GAO – by Dorothy Kosich (Mineweb.com – July 24, 2012)

www.mineweb.com

The longer the SEC delays adoption of a final conflict minerals rule, the worse the situation becomes for global manufacturers voluntarily trying to keep conflict minerals out of supply chains.

RENO (MINEWEB) – A performance audit by the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) has found the continued delay of the SEC to issue a final conflict minerals rule has contributed to “a lingering uncertainty among industry and other stakeholders” who have tried to implement voluntary conflict minerals supply chain initiatives.
 
In a recent report to the U.S. Congress, the GAO noted “the uncertainty regarding SEC’s reporting and due diligence requirements” has complicated the efforts of industry associations, multilateral organizations, and others who have developed global and in-region sourcing initiatives to help companies comply with future rules regarding conflict minerals.
 
Congress has pressured the SEC on two fronts to adopt rules relating to conflict minerals and resource extraction. In a June 22 letter to the SEC, 58 members of Congress urged the commission to implement Sections 1502 and 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which require public companies to make disclosures relating to the use of conflict minerals and payments made for mining of resources.

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Chiefs near Ring of Fire not seeing eye-to-eye on evictions – by Tbnewswatch.com – July 23, 2012

http://www.tbnewswatch.com/

Chiefs near Ring of Fire not seeing eye-to-eye on evictions

A pending eviction notice to mining companies with interest around the Ring of Fire is causing divisions among Matawa First Nation communities. Six of the nine Matawa First Nations are supporting a plan to evict several mining companies from the area.

Neskantaga First Nation Chief Peter Moonias says the group is still preparing to take the next step, and he says people are starting to realize that the government is lying about their consultations.

But Chief Eli Moonias from Marten Falls, one of the Matawa communities opposed to the eviction, has a different viewpoint.  Eli Moonias said he believes they have achieved consultation and the main operator, Cliffs Natural Resources, is now ready to discuss a memorandum of understanding.

The Marten Falls Chief added that it is First Nation leaders who are the ones now showing disrespect, and resolution of the matter is being pushed forward despite strong opposition.

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Nexen deal China’s Canadian bridgehead – by David Olive (Toronto Star – July 24, 2012)

The Toronto Star, has the largest circulation in Canada. The paper has an enormous impact on federal and Ontario politics as well as shaping public opinion.

Stephen Harper won’t stand in the way of Beijing’s biggest-ever foreign investment, a $15.5-billion (U.S.) bid unveiled Monday for Calgary-based oil producer Nexen Inc. by China’s state-owned Cnooc Ltd., or China National Offshore Oil Corp. Indeed, the Canadian prime minister will be applauding.
 
If Athabasca is rivalled only by the Middle East in its vast oil reserves, the world’s top creditor nation has its own vast resources — of cash — that Harper is eager to tap. Chinese firms already have pumped $17 billion into North American oil and gas plays since 2010. But there’s at least another $2 trillion of acquisition firepower where that came from.

The Cnooc embrace also puts muscle into Harper’s warnings to Washington that Canada is ready to redirect its oil exports to Asia if the U.S. balks at, say, the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that Calgary’s TransCanada Corp. proposes to build across the length of the U.S.

U.S. President Barack Obama has crossed swords with Ottawa with his one-year moratorium on the Keystone XL megaproject. That delay prompted Harper to turn up the volume on his kind words for China.

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The new energy revolution – by Margaret Wente (Globe and Mail – July 24, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

Welcome to the future. Chances are you’d never heard of Nexen or CNOOC before yesterday. But the $15.1-billion proposed takeover of Nexen by a huge state-owned Chinese oil company shows the way the world is going. We are seeing major new alliances that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago.

The deal has yet to be approved by Ottawa. But it plays right into Stephen Harper’s strategy of maximizing our opportunities as a global petro-power. Canada needs the Chinese and they need us, and it looks like everyone will wind up a winner – everyone, that is, but the large army of doomsayers who think the energy boom is stealing our soul.

Nexen has huge ambitions, but it’s a global pipsqueak. Like the industry as a whole, it needs enormous infusions of capital to realize its potential. The Chinese have huge amounts of money to invest in energy development and they’re scouring the world for opportunities. Their time horizon is very long. Canada is safe and secure – and also technologically advanced. For them, this is a no-brainer.

CNOOC is not the Politburo dressed up in pinstripes. It’s listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

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Nexen bid part of China’s plan to become resources powerhouse – by Pav Jordan (Globe and Mail – July 24, 2012)

The Globe and Mail is Canada’s national newspaper with the second largest broadsheet circulation in the country. It has enormous influence on Canada’s political and business elite.

China is taking a historic step toward its ambition to become a global resources powerhouse with a $15.1-billion (U.S.) bid to buy Calgary-based oil producer Nexen Inc.

The bid by state-backed CNOOC Ltd. is the largest by a Chinese firm for a foreign company, and confirms that Canada has become a proving ground for China’s rise in the global economic order as it deploys some of its trillions of dollars in foreign reserves to secure strategic resource properties around the world.

The deal builds on a string of previous acquisitions by Chinese firms in Canada’s oil sands. It would be the second-largest deal ever in Canada’s energy sector and, if approved, the sixth-largest takeover ever in Canada. Though it may test the Harper government’s stance on foreign ownership, two years after it blocked a $39-billion (Canadian) takeover offer for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., there are strong indications that the deal will be approved.

For one, CNOOC, China’s third-largest oil company, has cultivated relationships with top players in Ottawa in recent years.

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Nexen deal puts Ottawa on the spot – by Claudia Cattaneo (National Post – July 23, 2012)

The National Post is Canada’s second largest national paper.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been telling China that Canada welcomes its investment. Yet CNOOC Ltd.’s bid to purchase Canadian oil major Nexen Inc. for US$15.1-billion ($15.4-billion) pushes his government to a fork in the road, and its choices will have major implications for the country.
 
If Ottawa approves the bid, it makes good on its rhetoric and fends off the bad odour from its rejection of Australian miner BHP Billiton Ltd.’s hostile $39-billion bid for Potash Corp. nearly two years ago. However, make no mistake, it will make it hard to reject the takeover of other Canadian oil and gas ‘champions’ with depressed share prices that since the BHP/Potash saga have been seen as off limits, such as Encana Corp., Talisman Energy Inc. and Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., leaving Canadians with even less ownership and less control of an industry that is supposed to be the engine of their economy.
 
If Ottawa rejects the bid, it contains the selloff but loses credibility with investors and offends China, which Canada needs as a market for its oil and gas to reduce its dependence on the United States.

With CNOOC’s offer, China seems to be cleverly accommodating and even exceeding Canada’s foreign investment requirements, leaving little room for Ottawa to say no. Indeed, in interviews yesterday, CNOOC’s top executives said they are confident the deal will meet the “net benefit” test under the Investment Canada Act, even if formal discussions with Ottawa have not yet started.

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