CALGARY - Canada’s largest oilsands corporations have fashioned a brand new advocacy group they are saying will assist to advance the sustainable improvement and operation of their trade.
The Oil Sands Alliance was established Jan. 1, with membership consisting of oilsands producers Suncor Vitality Inc., Cenovus Vitality Inc., Imperial Vitality Ltd., Canadian Pure Sources Ltd. and ConocoPhillips.
It isn't clear whether or not the brand new group will probably be concerned in political lobbying or how precisely it will likely be structured.
Al Reid, director of the Oil Sands Pathways to Internet Zero alliance — which, together with different already present teams just like the Oil Sands Group Alliance (OSCA), Canada’s Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), and the Regional Oil Sands Working Alliance, will probably be overseen by the brand new group — mentioned extra particulars will probably be launched quickly.
Nonetheless, he mentioned all the corporations concerned within the new Oil Sands Alliance will stay lively members of the Canadian Affiliation of Petroleum Producers, the broader trade group that's the nation’s largest oil and gasoline foyer group.
Whereas CAPP will proceed to have the broader mandate for oil and gasoline advocacy for Canada’s oil and gasoline producers, the brand new Oil Sands Alliance will “lead the work associated to the oilsands.”
“As Canada’s largest oil useful resource, the oilsands have challenges and alternatives which can be distinctive throughout the broader oil and pure gasoline trade,” Reid mentioned in an emailed assertion. “We all know this requires a degree of focus and work that requires the specialised focus of our personal trade group.”
Reid described the extent of collaboration between oilsands producers proper now as “unprecedented.” By way of the Oil Sands Pathways to Internet Zero initiative — introduced final 12 months by the identical corporations that make up the brand new Oil Sands Alliance (in addition to MEG Vitality Inc., which isn't concerned within the new group) — main trade gamers have publicly pledged to work collectively to succeed in the aim of net-zero greenhouse gasoline emissions by 2050.
The trade’s imaginative and prescient of attending to that aim is anchored by a proposed main carbon seize, utilization and storage (CCUS) transportation line that might seize CO2 from oilsands services and transport it to a storage facility close to Chilly Lake, Alta.
CCUS is a expertise that captures greenhouse gasoline emissions from industrial sources and shops them deep within the floor to stop them from being launched into the environment.
Proponents say vastly scaling up CCUS throughout the oil and gasoline trade will probably be obligatory if Canada is to have a shot at assembly its local weather targets. The federal authorities has proposed a tax credit score for CCUS initiatives, and oilsands producers have been in talks with Ottawa over the small print of that credit score.
In December, Cenovus chief govt Alex Pourbaix mentioned on a convention name with analysts and reporters that CCUS isn't, at this level, an financial expertise by itself and that any wide-scale adoption by trade would require “important authorities help.”
In an interview Friday, Greenpeace Canada senior vitality strategist Keith Stewart mentioned it’s clear that oilsands gamers have gone all-in on “internet zero” and the creation of the brand new advocacy group is probably going aimed toward serving to to advance that messaging and securing authorities help for carbon seize initiatives.
However Stewart mentioned the issue with the time period “internet zero” is that the businesses are speaking about lowering internet emissions from their operations, not curbing their general manufacturing of fossil fuels.
“I don’t suppose anybody ought to be confused by this specific coat of inexperienced paint,” Stewart mentioned of the newly fashioned trade group, “till they really change their marketing strategy to align with getting off fossil fuels within the coming many years.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Jan. 14, 2022.
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