{"id":235683,"date":"2019-10-24T04:25:59","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T08:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=235683"},"modified":"2019-10-24T04:25:59","modified_gmt":"2019-10-24T08:25:59","slug":"united-conservatives-to-continue-with-ndps-alberta-petrochemical-credit-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/10\/24\/united-conservatives-to-continue-with-ndps-alberta-petrochemical-credit-program\/","title":{"rendered":"United Conservatives to continue with NDP’s Alberta petrochemical credit program"},"content":{"rendered":"
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But it will cancel two other NDP energy diversification schemes offering loan guarantees and grants because they carry a higher financial risk for Albertans, Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Wednesday. (File Photo:<\/a> Sonya Savage\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

CALGARY — The United Conservative government in Alberta says it will carry on with a program introduced by the former NDP regime to use $1.1 billion in energy royalty credits to encourage new petrochemical projects.<\/p>\n

But it will cancel two other NDP energy diversification schemes offering loan guarantees and grants because they carry a higher financial risk for Albertans, Energy Minister Sonya Savage said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

One program worth $500 million was designed to back petrochemical feedstock infrastructure projects and the other, worth $1 billion, to encourage more partial upgrading of crude by developers in Alberta.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis (credits) program has demonstrated success in developing projects in a financially responsible way with private industry taking the lead,\u201d said Savage on a conference call.<\/p>\n

The decision means the end of a $440-million loan guarantee announced by the NDP last January under the partial upgrading program to help Value Creation Inc. build a $2-billion upgrader near Edmonton that would convert diluted oilsands bitumen into medium synthetic crude and diesel.<\/p>\n

The Calgary-based company, which had a non-binding letter of intent for the guarantee, has been told the program will not be continuing, said Kavi Bal, senior press secretary for Savage.<\/p>\n

The province says it will also cancel an NDP call for proposals for refinery projects, which would have included potential government support.<\/p>\n

About $150 million in credits from the $1.1 billion available under the second round of the petrochemical program announced last year have already been awarded, said Dale Nally, associate minister of natural gas.<\/p>\n

The government is in the process of going through applications to allocate the rest but has not yet set a timeline, he added.<\/p>\n

The first round of the NDP’s petrochemical program resulted in $200 million in credits for Inter Pipeline Ltd. and $300 million for Pembina Pipeline Ltd., both of which are building multibillion-dollar projects in central Alberta to turn propane into polypropylene plastic.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CALGARY — The United Conservative government in Alberta says it will carry on with a program introduced by the former …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":234119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-dan-healing","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235684,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235683\/revisions\/235684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}