{"id":64479,"date":"2015-11-10T04:47:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-10T10:47:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=64479"},"modified":"2015-11-10T04:47:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-10T10:47:47","slug":"shell-ceo-carmon-creek-retreat-does-not-mark-a-retreat-from-the-oilsands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2015\/11\/10\/shell-ceo-carmon-creek-retreat-does-not-mark-a-retreat-from-the-oilsands\/","title":{"rendered":"Shell CEO: Carmon Creek retreat does not mark a retreat from the oilsands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"In<\/a>
In October 2013, Shell announced it was proceeding to construct the Carmon Creek Project on its Peace River heavy oil leases. The Carmon Creek Project will produce 80,000 barrels of bitumen per day using vertical steam drive wells. (Photo from Shell<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

FORT SASKATCHEWAN, Alta. \u2013 The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Plc says a decision to back away from its Carmon Creek oilsands project last month does not mean it\u2019s backing away from the oilsands in general.<\/p>\n

Ben van Beurden told reporters last week that his company ranks investment opportunities in its global portfolio project-by-project, not region-by-region \u2013 so the whole industry cannot be painted with the same brush as the halted 80,000-barrel-a-day Carmon Creek project in northwestern Alberta.<\/p>\n

More important than its upfront cost was the project’s \u201cresilience\u201d under a variety of different scenarios, said van Beurden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most sensible thing was to shelve it and to focus our cash elsewhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Carmon Creek, Shell looked at a host of variables \u2013 from having the means to export the crude to sourcing the diluent needed to help the bitumen flow through pipelines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were just too many uncertainties causing a range of outcomes from the absolutely fantastic to the absolutely disastrous, and that is the sort of lack of resilience that we cannot live with, certainly not in today\u2019s environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Beurden noted Shell\u2019s existing oilsands operations around Fort McMurray, Alta., make money even in today\u2019s weak market, with operating costs of $25 a barrel during the third quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also, by the way, think that in the longer run, oil prices are going to stabilize at slightly higher levels than where they are today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. benchmark, West Texas Intermediate, settled below US$44 a barrel on Monday.<\/p>\n

Van Beurden made his remarks during a visit to Shell’s Scotford refining and upgrading complex northeast of Edmonton last Friday, where its Quest carbon capture and storage project had its grand opening.<\/p>\n

The Quest project aims to capture more than a million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year from the Scotford oilsands upgrader and store it two kilometres underground rather than release it into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

The event came on the same day as U.S. President Barack Obama\u2019s rejection of the contentious Keystone XL pipeline, which would have offered a more direct route for 830,000 barrels a day of oilsands crude to make its way to the lucrative U.S. Gulf Coast market.<\/p>\n

Much of the opposition that contributed to Keystone XL\u2019s downfall was focused on the pipeline\u2019s role in enabling more oilsands development \u2013 and more carbon emissions as a result.<\/p>\n

Van Beurden said there\u2019s been a \u201cgeneral frustration\u201d about a lack of progress on climate change and that\u2019s spilled over into the pipeline debate. Shell is among the companies pushing for a broad carbon price ahead of the UN climate talks in Paris in a few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a growing sort of reservoir of anxiety and maybe even sort of resentment, and with it, the will to do almost everything and that\u2019s why you see quite understandably very, very strong positions taken, like \u2018let\u2019s stop this pipeline,\u2019 or \u2018let\u2019s divest from fossil fuel companies,\u2019 or \u2018let\u2019s advocate for leaving fossil fuels in the ground,\u2019 or \u2018let\u2019s demonize everything that has to do with fossil fuels,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf indeed there would be a very sensible and actionable policy framework that would indeed have demonstrable results, maybe some of these more extreme positions that get taken go back into the box again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FORT SASKATCHEWAN, Alta. \u2013 The CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Plc says a decision to back away from its Carmon …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":64480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-64479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-original","mauthors-lauren-krugel","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64479","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=64479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}