Tar Sands Resistance Blowing Huge Hole in Oil Industry's Bottom Line: Report

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2014/10/29/tar-sands-resistance-blowing-huge-hole-oil-industrys-bottom-line-reporte

The growing tide of tar sands resistance—seen in blockades, tree sits, petitions, education efforts and calls to divest—is having a measurable negative impact on the bottom line of the tar sands industry, according to a new report, prompting researchers to declare that "business as usual for tar sands is over."

Published Wednesday by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and Oil Change International, the report, Material Risks: How Public Accountability Is Slowing Tar Sands Development (pdf), finds that tar sands production revenues were down about $30.9 billion from 2010 through 2013. And according to the report, more than half of that lost revenue, roughly $17 billion, can be attributed to the fierce grassroots campaigns that have sprung up throughout North America in the past few years.

Led in large part by the Keystone XL resistance effort, anti-tar sands campaigns have created numerous delays and cancelled projects which have successfully impacted the bottom line for Canadian oil producers and drilling companies.

"Lack of market access, caused in large part by public accountability actions driven by pipeline campaigns, has played a significant role in the cancellation of three major tar sands projects in 2014 alone: Shell’s Pierre River, Total’s Joslyn North, and Statoil’s Corner Project," notes the report, which is the first in a series of collaborative papers on the tar sands industry to be published by the groups.

Further, the report notes that capital expenditure into tar sands projects are declining while 9 of 10 leading tar sands producers in Canada have underperformed in the broader stock market in the last five years. Meanwhile, financial analysts have recently downgraded their outlook for tar sands production, once estimated to be as much as 4.8 million barrels per days.

[Demeter]

1. I rather think it's the exceedingly jealous Saudis

protecting their market share by cutting their oil prices that has doomed shale oil.

the oil markets are being used as a political weapon, because the banks have proven their limitations as instruments of coercion between nations. The BRICS are abandoning the Western financial rackets and creating their own parallel and probably much less corrupt alternatives. This seriously destroys the petro-dollar.

Meanwhile, the BRICS are getting their oil from the countries that the West has been shutting out: Iran, Iraq, Russia, further destroying the petro-dollar.

It's very exciting to watch, and hell to live through. Someone update these lyrics for modern times:

[INdemo]

4. This will all change if the Repukes

take control of Senate.

[Demeter]

7. Unlikely

Even the GOP can't afford that big a giveaway to the Oil Bidness. Wall Street won't let them. It's not the 1960's any more. Power has shifted in the nation.

[irisblue]

2. as the cat said

GOOD!

[mountain grammy]

3. My son is an operator at a refinery

in Delaware. They are getting tar sands oil by railroad and tanker trucks. He said the stuff is nasty and corrosive. It may mean his job, but he is 100% against the pipeline.

[Thespian2]

5. polluting Alberta

in order to destroy the earth should never have started. The sooner all the Greedy Bastards pull their companies out of Alberta, the better. Give the earth a chance!

[greiner3]

6. A big PLUS!

The Koch Bros. are heavily invested in the stuff..........

[arikara]

8. Except they aren't really "Canadian" oil producers

the companies are mainly foreign owned, such as American and Chinese. Harper and his predecessors have been giving our resources away at an astounding pace, with no benefit to Canadians except the relative few who work in the oil patch for big bucks.