The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) gave local businesses an update on the oil and gas industry while also sharing their energy platform.
The Bonnyville and District Chamber of Commerce invited CAPP to bring the area up-to-date on the oil and gas sector on Wednesday, March 20.
“Considering the upcoming election, I think it was a great time to have CAPP here to give us their state of the economy, they’re election platform, and what they’re encouraging for the next four years,” detailed Serina Parsons, executive director for the chamber.
Chris Montgomery, CAPP’s manager of exploration and production communications and outreach, spoke about the challenges facing their members.
“It’s obviously been a difficult few years. Bonnyville has been impacted greatly, given the nature of the resource here.”
In order to see production increase, Montgomery stressed the importance of constructing pipelines.
“You can’t keep producing a goods product if you can’t move it, and that’s what we’re seeing here today,” he noted.
At this time, Canada has three proposed pipelines that CAPP feels will solve some of the industry’s problems - the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, Keystone XL, and Enbridge’s Line 3 Replacement Project.
“We need to make sure we have in place today, the proper regulatory system that gives certainty, that allows good projects to be built, and allows concerns to be heard and addressed,” stressed Montgomery.
Oil is currently being shipped by rail, something Montgomery believes to be a costly method of transporting product.
“It’s not the most economic solution, and it’s not ideal for the rest of the economy. It obviously takes up capacity that could be used by other products by rail, but it’s the reality we’re facing.”
In terms of Bill C-69, Montgomery said, “If you want to build a mine, if you want to build an electricity transmission, if we want to electrify our economy, you can’t do that under Bill C-69 because you wouldn’t be able to build a transmission line. (There) wouldn’t be the regulatory certainty, there’s a lot of potential for political interference in the... assessment process.”
CAPP’s energy platform highlights concerns when it comes to the oil and gas industry, such as regulatory competitiveness and market access.
It was released a few months ago, “in hopes that all political parties in this election would pay attention to our issues, take up what we think the solutions are for the industry... and that energy issues will be part of the election campaign.”
Montgomery encouraged those in attendance to get active and raise awareness surrounding the problems faced by oil and gas.
“We won’t be able to combat the environmentalist from a dollar-to-dollar point, CAPP is never going to get enough money from its members to fight for dollar-for-dollar basis. Where we can start to win this conversation is with the number of people speaking out, because that ultimately makes the biggest difference for politicians.”
