The Oil Drum

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The week after we saw bank runs in the UK, a measure of calm has returned to the markets thanks to a combination of central bank bailouts, government deposit guarantees and interest rate cuts. For all that heavy intervention, one derivatives market expert warns that we are still at the beginning of the beginning of the credit crunch.

On the Canadian energy scene, the debate over the Alberta oil and gas royalties review continues. Alberta, which has lower royalties than comparable jurisdictions, wants its fair share, but that could affect Ottawa's tax take. Investors concerned about the royalty issue seem keen to extract themselves from tar sands investments. With the Canadian dollar at parity with the US dollar for the first time since 1976, there are concerns about the ability of the Canadian economy to adapt and compete.

Concerns on the climate front center on the potential for methane-powered runaway warming thanks to new research on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The direct relationship between carbon offsets and increasing child labour in the third world is also worth highlighting.

Are we headed for an epic bear market?

One of the world's leading experts on credit derivatives, Das is the author of a 4,200-page reference work on the subject, among a half-dozen other tomes. As a developer and marketer of the exotic instruments himself over the past 30 years. He seemed like the ideal industry insider to help us get to the bottom of the recent debt crunch -- and I expected him to defend and explain the practice.

I started by asking the Calcutta-born Australian whether the credit crisis was in what Americans would call the "third inning." This was pretty amusing, it seemed, judging from the laughter. So I tried again. "Second inning?" More laughter. "First?"

Still too optimistic. Das, who knows as much about global money flows as anyone in the world, stopped chuckling long enough to suggest that we're actually still in the middle of the national anthem before a game destined to go into extra innings. And it won't end well for the global economy....

....When you add it all up, according to Das' research, a single dollar of "real" capital supports $20 to $30 of loans. This spiral of borrowing on an increasingly thin base of real assets, writ large and in nearly infinite variety, ultimately created a world in which derivatives outstanding earlier this year stood at $485 trillion -- or eight times total global gross domestic product of $60 trillion.

As oil threatens to go through the roof over concerns that OPEC may not open the spigots, exploiting Canadian reserves is becoming far more expensive. The threat of labour disruption in the oil sands will only add to the problem.

An OPEC equivalent controlling future LNG trade is seen as a threat to US security, even as natural gas prices decline and the drilling sector consolidates in Canada.

Burnaby BC comes to terms with a long clean up after an oil spill, as the aftermath of a Japanese earthquake rattles the nuclear industry, and Ontario's nuclear troubles continue.

Risk aversion goes international as credit markets tighten around the world. Faced with threatened deals, banks are holding on to loans rather than hawking them to investors. The US sends another more senior figure to China to convince them to buy mortgage-backed securities. As bridge loans become pier loans in the developing credit crunch, Wall Street 'heads for the diaper aisle'.

Oil firms find reserves elusive

For investors looking for the cheapest reserve replacement costs, don't turn to Canada. Not only is the country's oil and gas basin particularly well-developed, making new reserves hard to find, but also Alberta's oil sands boom has driven up service costs above and beyond the increase seen globally. Canada's senior producers' reserve replacement costs went up 40 per cent from 2005 to 2006, while the country's energy trusts and juniors saw costs increase year over year by 62 per cent and 37 per cent, respectively, according to the report.

"The unrelenting rise in reserve replacement costs, coupled with cost pressures elsewhere, has significantly eroded the profitability of crude oil and natural gas developments, especially in high-cost regions such as Western Canada," Mr. Ollenberger said.

North American integration is making the news again on both sides of the border, and on the other side of the Atlantic. Meanwhile, another large Canadian company - Alcan - becomes the subject of a takeover some describe as a symptom of Canadian economic suicide. The natural gas drilling crash affects Baker Hughes, the Chinese feel unwelcome in the Alberta oil patch and concerns are raised over the safety of LNG terminals in Québec.

In the US the subprime credit market problems are beginning to snowball, while the folly of relying on sophisticated risk analysis models based on the 'data' from 'liar's loans' becomes apparent. Wall Street's ability to value assets is called into question, the lawyers begin to get in on the act and the US tries to sell mortgaged-backed securities to China.

How cosy do we want to be with the Americans?

Prime Minister Stephen Harper will be meeting in Montebello, Que., with U.S. President George W. Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderón on Aug. 20 and 21.

These meetings seem to be kept deliberately low-profile. Do we, as Canadians, really want to continue down the road toward deep integration with the United States with regard to our resources?

In March 2005, Paul Martin, Vicente Fox and Bush met in Waco, Tex., to ratify the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP takes NAFTA's goal of continental economic integration much further by including security and foreign policy issues, and by speeding up the process of regulatory harmonization integral to the first Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.

All this has been done quietly, resulting in a lack of public awareness or input. It should also be noted that all three North American governments seem to be moving quickly toward a continental resource pact, a North American security perimeter, and common agricultural and other polices related to our health and environment. To date, the public has been neither informed or consulted.

We should ask our members of parliament their position on these very important meetings, and when public input will be initiated.

This is our country. Let's keep it strong and free.

Elizabeth Eidt, Stratford

Drilling jobs scene bleak

Thousands of rig hands in Western Canada are waiting for callbacks from their drilling-company employers, but industry observers say the high Canadian dollar and a crash in the royalty trust and junior part of the oilpatch mean they could be idle for a long time.

While the drilling industry, which for years worked to build up its labour pool, is reluctant to talk in terms of outright layoffs because of the seasonal nature of its work, it's expected there will be almost 3,500 fewer roughneck positions this summer relative to last year, as the number of active rigs drops to 376, from 512 in 2006.

Arctic Gas projects put on ice

New cost estimates that pushed up the price of the Mackenzie gas pipeline to $16.2- billion make Canada's Arctic natural gas among the most expensive on the continent, top explorers in the area said yesterday.

Executives at Devon Canada Corp. and Apache Canada Ltd. said they're putting exploration plans on ice until the project becomes a reality.

"When I see the welders show up and start welding pipe, that's when exploration will ramp up again," said Chris Seasons, president of Devon Canada, a subsidiary of Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp., which spent more than $300-million looking for natural gas in the North this decade. "Certainly the delay to 2014, assuming the project goes ahead, is not helpful, and while we haven't seen any tolls on the mainline, just looking at the costs, it's going to make it amongst the most expensive gas in North America," he said.

Massive Quebec hydro project faces native opposition

Quebec Premier Jean Charest announced the start of construction Thursday for the province's biggest hydroelectric project in a decade, the $5-billion Eastmain -1-A in northern Quebec.

But what would have been a ground-breaking ceremony were it held up north in James Bay turned into a news conference in Montreal after rumours that Cree opponents to the plan were going to protest....

....Mr. Charest said hydroelectricity is an economic development tool for Quebec that will benefit all of its citizens, including the Cree.

Construction of the dams will be completed between 2009 and 2012 and will create thousands of direct and indirect jobs.

Chief Matthew Mukash of the Grand Council of the Crees, lent his support to the project but admitted he did so with some sadness.

“I know that a lot of Cree people are concerned today and it's probably a very sad day for a lot of people. It's a sad day for me,” he said.

Venture capitalists look at alternative energy

Investors in start-ups are expected to pump even more money into energy ventures in 2007 after doubling their bets last year amid shifting politics and global-warming worries.

Venture-capital firms poured $536 million into biofuel and other energy ventures in the first three quarters last year vs. $224 million in all of 2005, said industry tracker Dow Jones VentureOne.

Last year's gain came as overall VC investing rose a smaller 9.7 percent, to $19.5 billion, from 2005's comparable three quarters. The rise also dwarfed the figure five years before, when investors flocked to energy during California's electricity crisis, only to cut back after the crisis passed.

Now, VCs are returning to the sector, following a "sea change" of interest in alternatives to conventional energy sources, said John Denniston, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Well it is that time of year again, and I've just spent an hour or so sweeping the chimney and cleaning the stove. Getting ready to start heating "the old-fashioned way" is a very long way from earlier this week when I walked around the exhibition at Fabtech, the largest metal forming trade show in North America. There were robots welding, pipes bending, punches thudding, waterjets cutting and 6 kW lasers carving out samples from metal plates. It was one of those places where, if so inclined, you could watch fascinating displays almost all day (and I did). But it led me very quickly to thinking about the energy that is now consumed in manufacturing, as we have moved from getting things hand-made by the blacksmith down at the forge, to where the entire process can be robot-operated, without human touch. This change has been one of those steps that keep North America ahead in a time of global markets and much cheaper labor elsewhere. But that change, and the power of many systems today, has rarely, `til recently, had to consider the cost of energy, as a significant part of the operational expense.

That now is changing, and energy costs are already having an impact that goes outside the more obvious ones of driving less, or turning down the thermostat. Anecdotally one hears that the National Glass Center in Sunderland is closing four of its furnaces, because of the rising price of natural gas. That's one way to cope with the increase in cost, simply stop doing what you were, or at least at the same level. But as the entire economy becomes a victim, long-term that is not going to help.

Draining Canada First

How long can Canada go on behaving like America's most compliant energy colony?

Not very long, according to David Hughes, a petroleum geologist with the Geological Survey of Canada. Speaking before the World Peak Oil Conference held in Boston last week, Hughes painted a remarkably pessimistic picture of Canada's energy future, especially regarding natural gas.

Despite record drilling activity, natural gas extraction volumes have slipped from the peak set in 2002, and output per well is now declining at an annual rate of 28%. Put another way, energy companies must add 3,000 more wells in 2007 on top of the 15,000 now in production just to keep output from diminishing.

That would be a daunting challenge even if there were spare rigs and drilling crews standing by. As it now stands, there is no spare capacity of this sort anywhere in North America.

With only eight years of proven reserves left in Canada, Hughes suspects that natural gas output is about to fall off a cliff. Barring a miracle or two, Canada will soon experience challenges in providing for its own citizens, let alone producing surplus volumes bound for American furnaces.

Looks like there's plenty to keep y'all busy today, so I'll just point out a couple of relevant posts from other blogs.

A couple of days ago, Gristmill's Tom Philpott reported on a Wall Street Journal article suggesting that the Chinese demand for oil is slackening this year.

Environmental Economics has a great quote from Sen. Pete Domenici, who asked the oil company execs to explain to him how the price of oil is determined, since "my constituents and, I believe, most Americans think that somebody rigs these prices".

Both of these blogs also mention that the provision to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge has been removed from  the spending bill (just in case you hadn't heard).