The oil sands omerta
Norval Scott, March 12, 2008 at 3:58 PM EDT
According to oil executives speaking at the World Heavy Oil Congress
in Edmonton this week, a big challenge for the oil sands industry is
to overcome adverse public perceptions of their work. To a man, the
Canadian representatives speaking – including the chief executives of
Suncor Energy Inc. and Nexen Inc. – referred to the need to do better
in the PR battle, and emphasized that this was a priority.
It’s a fight that the companies aren’t winning, and it’s their own
fault. While Canadian executives do a good job of showing up at events
such as the WHOC, they don’t always answer the many questions their
industry faces.
For example, on Monday The Globe and Mail reported that the federal
government was about to announce new environmental legislation. Later
that day, the new rules were released, indicating that all new oil
sands plants must include carbon capture and storage technology from
2012 – a major policy shift that appears to make future oil sands
development more expensive.
Despite the importance of this announcement, there has so far been no
response from individual companies other than what reporters were able
to collect at the WHOC – and even then the chief executives present
largely refused to comment on the proposals, saying they hadn’t seen
the details. (To be fair, they hadn’t, although they would have been
able to read the Globe story.) But it is now Wednesday, and presumably
the companies are now familiar with what the government intends. And
yet, the only industry response has been from the Canadian Association
of Petroleum Producers, the umbrella organization. (It said the
targets and time frame set by the government are in question.)
The oil sands companies, it seems, are happy to hide their light
under CAPP’s bushel on one of the major federal issues they will face
in coming years. Why aren’t the big oil sands companies standing up
and saying, this is what the federal government’s move means, and this
is what we think about it?
While there are many exceptions, a fair number of CEOs and senior
executives of Calgary’s largest energy companies seem happy to limit
their public appearances to annual meetings and quarterly conference
calls, and restrict their contact with reporters to brief scrums. It
doesn’t help them get their point of view across, and it doesn’t
inform the public on the exciting things their companies are actually
trying to do.
Yes, these are busy men. But it appears that they are too afraid to
become associated with any negatives connected with oil sands
development. That fear is preventing the message that companies want
to put across – that they are responsible corporate citizens doing
necessary economic development.
After all, if you can’t stand there and take your shots, you don’t get
to deliver any punches yourself either.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080312.WBwenergyblo...
