During the second round of negotiations for a global plastics treaty in Paris this week, diplomats have clashed over competing priorities — including the role of recycling and how to address toxic chemicals. But some experts are arguing that one issue in particular should anchor the ongoing talks: climate change.
There’s growing speculation that the decision to “postpone” work on the giant Bay du Nord oil and gas project off the Newfoundland and Labrador coast is actually a cancellation moving in slow motion.
Norwegian state fossil Equinor announced Wednesday that it was suspending plans to develop the C$16-billion Bay du Nord megaproject in the province’s offshore for up to three years.
The Trans Mountain pipeline received additional support from the Canadian government after the cost to expand the controversial Alberta-to-British Columbia oil conduit jumped 44 per cent in March.
This post originally appeared on Rolling Stone and was published January 21, 2020.
In 2014, a muscular, middle-aged Ohio man named Peter took a job trucking waste for the oil-and-gas industry. The hours were long — he was out the door by 3 a.m. every morning and not home until well after dark — but the steady $16-an-hour pay was appealing, says Peter, who asked to use a pseudonym. “This is a poverty area,” he says of his home in the state’s rural southeast corner. “Throw a little money at us and by God we’ll jump and take it.”
In 2018, Husky Energy asked Stephen Mason, who has years of experience developing oil and gas projects on the African continent, to get First Nations together to put in a bid to buy the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) Pipeline. Husky, which has since been bought by Cenovus, had already booked space on the yet-to-be-built pipeline to get its oil from Alberta to the Pacific coast, where it could sell at higher prices.
Pipeline watchers say Ottawa may need to take a haircut if it wants to find a buyer
The overbudget Trans Mountain expansion project owes its lenders at least $23 billion and is looking to take on more private debt as the federal government shuts its wallet and construction costs skyrocket.
