CAGC

By: Cody Battershill Article featured in the 2015 Spring Edition of CAGC's quarterly magazine, The Source.  As the price of oil declines, prediction of doom-and-gloom pervade the media. Here's me message to the catastrophe-is-coming crowd: Chill out! No doubt, the declining price of oil is having and economic impact on the oil sands and given the importance of the oil sands to the country as a whole, declining oil prices mean Canada's economy will be challenged too.  But there's no reason for panic. Commodity prices are cyclical and Canada's oil sands industry has always been focused on the long-term. Over the long-term, there's no doubt the industry will continue to grow and strengthen and the sector will remain of vital importance to the nation's future prosperity.  Despite lower oil prices, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers indicates 2015 capital investment in the oil sands is forecast to be $25 billion, down from last year, but ...

May Recorder Article By: Mike Doyle, CAGC Mike Doyle is the President of the CAGC – the Canadian Association of Geophysical  Contractors - representing the business interests of the seismic industry within Canada.  The CAGC website may be found at www.cagc.ca . Certainly a tough go of it out there. We are down to five (5) land seismic companies left in Canada. That was down from ten (10) a year ago and fifteen (15) or so a few years before that. Certainly crew counts are reflective of that this winter. So fingers crossed that things start to recover in Q3 of this year and we see a healthier seismic industry with fewer companies left. Maybe Obama and the environmentalists are winning, but really it is the strong market forces – supply and demand dynamics – more than anything. Pat Roche writes in the March 20, 2015 Daily Oil Bulletin – the following excerpts are from the article titled U.S. Isolationism Creates More Fragmented Commercial World, Conference Told: ...

By: Brad Herald, Vice-President, CAPP The following Op-Ed was published in the March 4th edition of Yukon News Following the completion of a legislative report on hydraulic fracturing, the Yukon government is in a better position to assess the potential of its natural gas resources. This opportunity should be explored further to determine if it can help meet increasing energy demand, in Canada and beyond.  In jurisdictions where hydraulic fracturing is a long-standing practice, such as British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan, experience demonstrates the process is done safely and responsibly, a result of robust regulations and industry best practices. More than 215,000 wells have been hydraulically fractured in Alberta, B.C., and Saskatchewan over the past 60 years. This experience also demonstrates the significant economic and social benefits linked to development, including job creation, royalty and tax payments, and other contributions to communities.  While it i...

Originally published March 4th by Enform Retrieved from  http://blog.enform.ca/blog/safety-in-todays-oil-climate-3-ways-enform-can-help/  The drop in oil prices has affected all of us, and if you’ve been forced to temporarily cut back on your operations as a result, you’re in good company. We know this can make it difficult if you need to complete your  COR certification  or maintenance audit, but we have some options to help you through the process: 1. If you have a dramatically reduced number of worksites: As long as you have at least one active field site you can base your sampling requirements on your best estimate of your high or medium activity levels for the current year. Requirements include: The resulting audit must be representative of your overall operations for the audit year. If you acquire new operations and undergo major business expansions, a new external audit may be required. It’s important not to deliberately schedule your audits a...

Exaggerated, worst-case claims result in bad policy and they ignore a wealth of encouraging data. By: Bjorn Lomborg, Wall Street Journal Originally published Feb 1st, 2015 It is an indisputable fact that carbon emissions are rising—and faster than most scientists predicted. But many climate-change alarmists seem to claim that all climate change is worse than expected. This ignores that much of the data are actually encouraging. The latest study from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change found that in the previous 15 years temperatures had risen 0.09 degrees Fahrenheit. The average of all models expected 0.8 degrees. So we’re seeing about 90% less temperature rise than expected. Facts like this are important because a one-sided focus on worst-case stories is a poor foundation for sound policies. Yes, Arctic sea ice is melting faster than the models expected. But models also predicted that Antarctic sea ice would decrease, yet it is increasing. Yes,...

By: Nichola Groom, Jan 9th, 2015 (Reuters) - With gas pump prices lingering near their lowest levels in five years, greener, cleaner alternative fuels are taking a hit. Makers of biodiesel, a fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fats, are slashing prices and margins in a bid to stay competitive with the price of diesel fuel, which is down more than 20 percent from a year ago. Shippers are delaying purchases of trucks that run on  naturalgas , and sales of electric vehicles are down, while demand for less fuel-efficient SUVs is up. Wall Street is also punishing the sector. The WilderHill Clean Energy index, which tracks everything from renewable power producers to solar panel makers, is down 36 percent after hitting a three-year high last March. "The producers have to be getting murdered," said Steven Boyd, senior managing director at Sun Coast Resources Inc., a Houston-based distributor of petroleum and alternative fuels. "And the consumer puts a smile on ...

By: Stewart Muir, Executive Director, Resource Works From the Resource Works Weekly Update - Feb 10th It’s true nobody out is there is against everything. But every single resource project has someone against it. The cumulative effect I have called the anti-everything movement . It is having a corrosive effect on our ability to plan for a future in which tuition fees are kept in check, people can afford their health care, and there are jobs at home so our kids don’t have go off to other provinces with the grandkids in tow. Yesterday I counted 25 lobby groups that, often with millions of dollars from foreign sources, are taking positions on environmental issues. In almost all cases, the issues in question are, at some level, legitimate ones that everybody should be concerned about.  It is the proposed remedies for these problems that should give reasonable people cause for concern. Too often, we are being asked to sign on to positions without properly understanding w...