Canada's Cenovus CEO says friction between Ottawa, Alberta hard to hold meaningful discussions

On January 23, the chief executive of Cenovus Energy Inc., which is part of an alliance of Canada's biggest oil and gas producers, said that friction between the federal and Alberta governments was making it hard to hold meaningful discussions on funding carbon capture and storage CCS technology needed to decarbonize the oil and gas sector.

The group wants public money to fund 66 per cent of that, or roughly $10.9 billion, and says government support would speed up decarbonization and help establish a competitive clean-tech industry in Canada. The federal government has a tax credit worth $2.6 billion over the next five years, but both Ottawa and Alberta say the other should contribute more. Alberta s conservative Premier Danielle Smith is a vocal critic of Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and has slammed many aspects of federal climate policy, accusing Ottawa of trying to cripple the province's energy sector.

Trudeau told the Reuters in an interview earlier this month that the sooner Alberta s political class understood that the future was not to be feared, the better. It is very hard to have meaningful discussions with another party when you're lobbing rocks at each other, Alex Pourbaix, chief executive of Pathways member Cenovus, told Reuters in an interview. I would like to see the temperature turned down a bit. There needs to be a discussion between the federal and provincial governments and industry, and Pathways has set a target for that early this year, according to Pourbaix. I have had both levels of government tell me that they re support doing that and engaging on that. He said that it has not occurred yet to the level that it needs to resolve the differences that the groups may have.

Irving Oil refinery to use renewable natural gas from food waste Canada is the fourth-largest producer of crude, most of which comes from Alberta sands. The oil and gas sector needs to drastically reduce emissions if Canada is to meet its international climate commitments, because it is the country's highest-polluting industry. The Pathways Alliance said Ottawa's goal of cutting gas and oil emissions by 42 per cent by 2030 is unachievable, equivalent to a 35 megatonne reduction. Pathways Alliance president Kendall Dilling said the group could achieve a 22 megatonne reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, but it depends on key components like public funding being agreed and a smooth regulatory approval process for the CCS project. Dilling said that we don't have time to slip. Canada has a poor track record on major infrastructure development in the last decade, according to Dilling. If we run into the same kind of problems, 2030 will not be realized.