Hydrogen is attracting a lot of attention. And for good reason. As a clean energy carrier, hydrogen is going to play an important role for countries to help achieve their net zero goals. Over the past couple of years, governments have released hydrogen-specific policies. Canada released its hydrogen strategy last December.
September 14, 2021, 12 AM MDT
Climate change will be a key topic in the leaders’ debates this week. All major parties have put forward climate plans (see Part II of this series) and their leaders will surely duke it out on climate at the debates. What do Canadians think? How much do they want climate action? How confident are they Canada can reduce emissions?
September 7, 2021, 6 AM MDT
What a difference two years makes! During the 2019 federal election campaign the Canadian oilpatch still hung on the hope of a Conservative Party victory saving it from the Trudeau government’s climate change agenda.
August 31, 2021, 8:56 AM MDT
Helium may only be a niche commodity, and a rather opaque one at that, but the noble gas may be the perfect play to help diversify Western Canada’s economy.
August 9, 2021, 6 AM MDT
In Could Canada Miss The Hydrogen Export Bus? I argued that Alberta and Quebec, the two provinces with the greatest clean hydrogen aspirations, needed to get moving now to secure a significant share of their most plausible export markets in the more distant future — California and the U.S. Northwest for Alberta and the U.S. Northeast for Quebec.
July 26, 2021, 6 AM MDT
Despite some positive developments with LNG projects in B.C., the future of this industry in the province is a bit murky.
July 5, 2021, 6:32 AM MDT
A trend that we have witnessed during the recent wave of consolidation in the Canadian oil and natural gas industry is a significant number of privately-held oil and natural gas companies achieving liquidity by selling to publicly-traded companies for shares.
June 30, 2021, 6:57 AM MDT
Some of you readers may have noticed that I focus many of my articles towards Alberta. It’s not as if I have anything against the other major energy producing and exporting provinces in Canada — beautiful British Columbia and Quebec; and salt of the earth Saskatchewan and Newfoundland & Labrador. It’s simply a case of being a proud Albertan, concerned about the fate of our province.
June 21, 2021, 12 AM MDT
For many energy executives, market uncertainty is transforming capital spending planning from an annual process with quarterly updates to an exercise that plays out in real-time so that funds can be swiftly redeployed for greatest impact.
June 16, 2021, 6 AM MDT
ESG is the acronym for environmental, social, and (corporate) governance, the three distinct categories that have become mainstream with an investment community that is looking to invest in sustainable or socially responsible enterprises. What started as a niche investment strategy, sustainable/ESG-led investments have grown exponentially over the last few years.
June 15, 2021, 6 AM MDT
In Part 1 of this two-part series, I explored the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) recently released Net-Zero Emissions (NZE) scenario, a worst-case scenario for Alberta.
May 27, 2021, 6 AM MDT
In the first decade of this century Alberta was fueled by incredible optimism. Peak oil — on the supply side —reigned supreme, oilsands projects were popping up like mushrooms, while natural gas prices were through the roof. The province was rolling in royalty revenue.
May 26, 2021, 6:55 AM MDT
The IEA released a study last week that lays out a proposed pathway to global net zero GHG emissions by 2050. The part that’s grabbing the headlines? That there should be no development of new oil and gas fields if the world is to achieve net zero targets.
May 25, 2021, 9:02 AM MDT
In Part 1 of this two-part series, I looked at Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s (MBS) strategy to diversify the Saudi economy, his government’s evolving tactics to monetize its oil and gas resources, and identified both positive and negative lessons Alberta could learn from their efforts over the past five years.
April 29, 2021, 6 AM MDT
At the heart of President Joe Biden’s climate plan is the goal to decarbonize the U.S. power sector by 2035 and to create an irreversible path to a net-zero economy by 2050.
April 28, 2021, 6 AM MDT
In an April 2020 article written by Sayer Energy Advisors the question was posed: “Will We See an Increase in Consolidation in 2020?” Although it would have been impossible to know the full implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, our predictions at that time did take into consideration the fact that there would be some consolidation spurred on by the pandemic.
April 28, 2021, 6 AM MDT
Many would say a global health pandemic is a terrible time for big policy changes to transform the economy. Job number one should be the crisis at hand — big changes can wait. And yet, the federal government has released a flurry of climate commitments since the pandemic gripped the nation.
April 20, 2021, 7:30 AM MDT
President Biden’s climate plan is sweeping and more ambitious than any predecessor — it is a stark contrast to the Trump administration, and the contemplated changes are also more widespread than climate initiatives in the Obama administration.
April 13, 2021, 9:43 AM MDT
Any longtime reader of my columns in the DOB should know I’m no fan of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, for his despotic ways.
April 8, 2021, 9:53 AM MDT
In Part One of this series, a case was made for the Alberta government adopting industrial policy to guide strategic investment decisions to successfully guide economic diversification in the province, after numerous failures under the laissez-faire approach.
March 31, 2021, 6 AM MDT
The total enterprise value of merger and acquisition (“M&A”) transactions in the Canadian oil and natural gas industry more than doubled to approximately $20.0 billion in 2020 from $8.0 billion in 2019, a 149 per cent increase.
March 31, 2021, 7:08 AM MDT
The Biden-Harris administration is facing multiple crises including a pandemic and a bitterly divided electorate.
March 29, 2021, 9:54 AM MDT
Last autumn I wrote a number of articles for the DOB arguing that the Alberta government should adopt industrial policy-like long-term strategic planning to successfully guide economic diversification in the province as our debt mountain grows, the energy transition gains steam, and financial space for additional investment debacles narrows.
March 22, 2021, 6 AM MDT
In the first meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the two leaders unveiled an ambitious Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership. This is welcome news after years of dwindling federal attention to the bilateral relationship.
March 15, 2021, 12 AM MDT
Often, we don’t see the infrastructure that powers our world — the vast and hidden network of pipelines, wires, supply chains and remote industrial sites that process and transport our energy are easy to overlook.
March 10, 2021, 7:32 AM MST
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