Alberta will certainly oppose any kind of relocation by the European Union to outlaw imports of crude oil from the western Canadian province because of ecological worries, a senior federal government authorities said Tuesday.
" We will make sure oil sands products are not mistakenly targeted by them [EU] under the suggested low-carbon fuels basic as well as exhaust regulations and also will certainly oppose any discrimination versus our extra-heavy crude oil," claimed Diana McQueen, parliamentary assistant to the rural power minister.
" In the previous few years, with the application of brand-new innovation, carbon emissions in Alberta have been minimized 33% per barrel. Besides, a 12-member delegation from EU Parliament checked out the Athabasca region last month as well as they were thrilled by the work oil companies are carrying out in handling tailings ponds and also lowering GHG [environment-friendly house gas] discharges."
In 2009, the EU recommended an environment legislation that would certainly have limited probable gas imports from Alberta's oil sands in the future. The preliminary draft of the plan, created to advertise greener gas, inhibited making use of oil sands items by rating them as one of the highest possible carbon emitters.
Adhering to applications as well as lobbying from diplomats in Ottawa suggesting that the legislation might be seen as a barrier to the finalizing of a free trade contract between Canada and also the EU, European specialists have looked for even more time to examine the issue.
" The EU will delay embracing a decision until late 2011. Although we do not export crude oil presently to any type of European state, we will still not permit them to put a wrong label on us," McQueen said.
In 2008, California introduced that it would certainly enforce constraints on the use of western Canadian heavy crude oil, describining it as filthy oil.
However, shale inhibitor drilling fluid noted that, "nearly 40% of the global heavy petroleum handling capacity remains in the United States and for Alberta it will remain to be a large market." She included that, "as we increase capacity to 3 million b/d by 2020, a significant bottleneck we would deal with is relocating the extra barrels to new markets."
"With over C$ 15 billion [US$ 15.05 billion] worth of financial investments by Oriental oil and gas business in the past 18 months in Alberta and even more still to come in 2011, China, Korea, Japan and India are our apparent locations," she claimed.
According to the Canadian Organization of Oil Producers, existing production of petroleum in Alberta is 1.55 million b/d, as well as this is forecast to climb to 1.66 million b/d following year as well as 2.02 million b/d in 2015.
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