Water

Court rules against Chevron, city of Richmond in environmental review
By Katherine Tam
West County Times
06/05/2009

A Contra Costa Superior Court judge has ruled that the environmental document covering Chevron's bid to replace equipment at its Richmond refinery to refine a wider range of crude is insufficient and vague.

"Project description is unclear and inconsistent as to whether project will or will not enable Chevron to process a heavier crude slate than it is currently processing," Judge Barbara Zuniga wrote.

Oil sands ‘back in black,' crude nears $70
Nathan VanderKlippe
Calgary — Globe and Mail Update, Wednesday,
Jun. 03, 2009

Surging oil prices and tumbling construction costs have pulled Alberta's stalled oil sands across a major threshold to future profitability, creating new expectations that a comeback may not be as far away as once feared.

Declines in the cost of steel and labour have combined with crude prices that yesterday neared $70 to bring the oil sands “back in black,” said UBS Securities analyst Andrew Potter.

Four vie to become DFN grand chief
Roxanna Thompson
Northern News Services
Published Thursday, May 28, 2009

DEH CHO - For the first time in six years there's an election race underway for the position of grand chief with the Dehcho First Nations.

Four candidates, three from Fort Simpson and one from Fort Providence, are campaigning in the election.

USGS CARA Concludes 13% of Worlds Undiscovered Oil, 30% of Undiscovered Gas in the Arctic
Caraoil

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has completed a geologically-based assessment of the oil and gas resource potential of the Arctic, the Circum-Arctic Resource Appraisal (CARA). (Earlier post.) The researchers in the effort concluded that about 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30% of the world’s undiscovered gas may be found there, mostly offshore under less than 500 meters of water. A paper on the work was published in the 29 May issue of the journal Science.

Should green-minded Norway invest in Canadian oil-sands?

Last week, Greenpeace failed in its bid to force Norway's StatoilHydro to abandon a $2 billion investment in a project that it says produces 10 times the greenhouse gases as North Sea drilling.

By Tom Sullivan | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
from the May 27, 2009

Stockholm, Sweden - It came as little surprise when Norway's partially state-owned oil company, StatoilHydro, rejected a shareholder motion last week to pull out of a $2 billion tar-sands venture in Alberta, Canada.

Court orders oilsands to list contents of tailings
Ecojustice lawyers convince judge to overrule environment minister

By Hanneke Brooymans, The Edmonton Journal
May 28, 2009

More information about the toxic content of oilsands tailings ponds that sprawl over 130 square kilometres in northeast Alberta will soon be made public because of a Federal Court decision.

Cloudy forecast
Harper kicks up trade storm over U.S.'s ambitious low-carbon fuel rules
Alice Klein
Now Toronto May 25, 2009

It’s been a bad political week for the tar sands. Publicly, the Tories are still clinging to the cupid face they pulled on when U.S. President Barack Obama touched down in Ottawa this winter, but they’ve just pulled out the big, fat arrows and are aiming low.

As U.S. climate initiatives rev into real action, it shamefully ain’t our love that we Canucks are sending stateside.

Tar sands' climate threat, security promise both exaggerated -- report
By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD, Greenwire [NYTimes]
Published: May 22, 2009

NEW YORK -- Further development of Alberta's famous oil sands will be neither the climate disaster that activists fear nor the energy security panacea that proponents suggest it is, the Council on Foreign Relations concludes in a new report.

Groups unhappy with Chevron expansion
May 20, 2009
By Wayne Freedman

There may be a refinery upgrade in Richmond, but if environmental groups have it their way, it may never happen. This is frustrating Chevron.

"Well the whole intent of the project is to help modernize the refinery," said Chevron spokesman Dean O'Hair.

But the intent of lawyers was to delay it. There was wrangling in Superior Court after a ruling rejected an environmental impact report from Chevron and the city of Richmond. The court called it "unclear and inconsistent."

PUC extends deadline for filing in pipeline case
Published May 21 2009

The state Public Utilities Commission has extended a deadline to apply for party status in a case involving an oil pipeline in western South Dakota, but did not extend the deadline as much as one advocacy group requested.

Dakota Rural Action had requested that the PUC extend the deadline to file for party status to June 10, almost a month past the original deadline of May 11. The PUC on Wednesday announced it will extend the deadline, but only until May 31.

By: Austin Kaus, The Daily Republic