EDMONTON - Declaring that his province is keen to help landlocked Alberta find new markets for its oil, New Brunswick’s premier arrived in Edmonton Sunday.
“As a province on the east coast of Canada, we are open for business,” Premier David Alward said at the Fairmont Hotel Macdonald Sunday. “We have a long history of refining petroleum products. We’ve been importing it from all parts of the world and for us, it makes so much sense to be able to use our own natural resources to be able to do that.”
Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk welcomed the New Brunswick delegation Sunday morning to start the group’s three-day visit.
He described Alward’s trip as an important step in Premier Alison Redford’s work to develop a Canadian Energy Strategy, an idea that includes a west-east pipeline.
“New Brunswick has Canada’s largest refinery, the Irving refinery,” Lukaszuk said. “They can refine 300,000 barrels per day. Their capacity is phenomenal, but 83 per cent of the crude they refine for Eastern and Central Canada comes from abroad. Most of Eastern and Central Canada is energized by foreign oil.”
Currently, Alberta ships most of its oil to the United States, which has led to lower prices because of increased U.S. production and a sluggish American economy.
Redford announced in late January that Alberta expects to lose $6 billion — almost half — of the resource royalties it previously estimated for the 2013-14 fiscal year because of the price gap between the per barrel price of Western Canadian Select oil and the North American benchmark, West Texas Intermediate.
While efforts to build a new pipeline to the Pacific Ocean have run into major objections in British Columbia, including demands from B.C. Premier Christy Clark that Alberta give her province a share of its royalties, new opportunities now seem possible on the east coast.
Just days ago, federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said in an interview with The Canadian Press that he tentatively endorsed a proposal that would see TransCanada Corp. convert a natural gas line to one that could carry Alberta’s oil to Quebec and New Brunswick, where the Irving refinery operates in Saint John.
“I met with Arthur Irving (Irving Oil’s chairman) and expressed the support of the government of Canada, in principle, for this initiative,” Oliver said in the interview.
The National Energy Board would have to approve the project.
Lukaszuk said it was the first time he was aware of Oliver endorsing the idea of a west-east pipeline on the record. He welcomed the federal support.
“The federal government has been recognizing the importance of having a Canadian economy built on Canadian energy and Canadian self-sufficiency of energy,” Lukaszuk said.
The New Brunswick delegation’s visit will include meetings Edmonton, a tour of oilsands projects in the Fort McMurray area Monday, meetings in Calgary with Redford and a visit to the 10th Annual Canadian Oilsands Summit on Tuesday.
On a lighter note, Lukaszuk and Alward planned to watch the Super Bowl together on Sunday night at a downtown pub.
For Alward, a Progressive Conservative who became New Brunswick’s premier in October 2010, the trip’s focus is economic development opportunities for the two provinces.
But it also has a personal element.
Alward said that his son, Ben, works in northern Alberta right now as a pipefitter. “Certainly, I want to be able to see Ben working in New Brunswick in the same sector long term as well,” Alward said.
New Brunswick’s premier said it is important for producers to see the value of a pipeline that goes from Western Canada to the Atlantic. “We know how to do it; we’re open for business and we want that message to go out across the country,” he said.
Lukaszuk said the meetings will build on the momentum of discussions between Redford and Quebec Premier Pauline Marois in November, where the two leaders agreed to strike a working group to study the economic benefits and environmental consequences of directing more of Alberta’s natural resources to the East. That report is expected in June.
Redford also met with Ontario’s new premier, Kathleen Wynne, last Wednesday in Toronto.
“We have not given up on the West Coast,” Lukaszuk said. “We will continue our dialogues with British Columbia and the premier. However, we have learned a very important lesson that putting all of your economic eggs into one basket is never a good idea. We have done that for a long time with the United States. We will not transfer all our eggs to the B.C. basket.”
Redford said in a statement Friday, even though Alberta and New Brunswick sit on opposite ends of the country, the two provinces share an industry in a secure, reliable and environmentally responsible.
She said she was pleased Alward is taking the time to see the oilsands industry in action.
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