Ms. Smith called on Prime Minister Mark Carney to scrap a host of energy policies, including a tanker ban and the oil-and-gas emissions cap.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is confident there will soon be a new proposal for an oil pipeline to the West Coast, given conversations her government has been having with various energy companies.
Ms. Smith said Tuesday that it is important to get a new plan on the table as soon as possible to send a positive signal to Alberta’s oil and gas sector, and to test the new two-year approval process Prime Minister Mark Carney has put forward for large infrastructure projects.
“We’re pretty close to having either one or a consortium come forward, and so I would hope that that would happen very soon,” the Premier said at a press conference in Calgary.
Ms. Smith has made no secret that her government is working with oil companies to try to secure a proposal for a new pipeline to the West Coast.
She has also pitched Mr. Carney on a kind of quid pro quo, in which oil companies commit to building the Pathways Alliance carbon-capture project if he green-lights an oil pipeline.
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The Pathways Alliance is a group of major oil-sands companies that have pledged net-zero production by 2050. At the heart of that plan is a 400-kilometre-long pipeline that would transport carbon captured at oil sands facilities to an underground hub near Cold Lake, Alta., aiming to reduce emissions by 22 megatonnes a year.
Pathways Alliance discussions with Ottawa on its massive proposed project in the oil sands stalled out late last year.
People privy to the current state of play of the Pathways Alliance have said the project’s future will rely on new forms of co-operation between Ottawa and an Alberta government that has run hot and cold on oil-sands emissions reduction.
Part of the impasse on the project is around high operational costs, and an unwillingness of either government or industry to take on a high degree of revenue risk.
Ms. Smith, asked whether Alberta would commit to providing some of that revenue certainty, said Tuesday her government isn’t keen on getting involved in the private sector.
If projects need to be de-risked, she said, preferred methods include refundable capital expenses, such as the Alberta Carbon Capture Incentive Program, which rebates 12 per cent of capital costs.
The province is also looking at how it could use funds from the carbon price on large emitters to support industries that invest in carbon capture.
Oil and gas pipelines have come into sharp focus because of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war, as Canada’s fossil-fuel sector searches for more opportunities to diversify from the United States, its largest customer.
Mr. Carney has pledged to make Canada an energy superpower, but for Ms. Smith, meeting that goal will require new pipelines that can transport Alberta oil and gas to a Canadian coast – west, north or east – to access overseas markets.
She reiterated her call Tuesday for Mr. Carney to scrap a host of energy policies, including a tanker ban and the oil-and-gas emissions cap, saying such laws fuel Alberta separatist sentiment.
“They could solve this by having a mea culpa moment, like they did when they repealed the carbon tax,” the Premier said.
“He’s demonstrated that he can change course when he’s when he sees something that’s incorrect. And so I’m very hopeful that we’ll be able to persuade him of that over the next three months.”
Ms. Smith and her Saskatchewan counterpart, Premier Scott Moe, are also pushing for a port-to-port trade corridor proposal project in Canada’s North, which would help the country’s goods reach Asian markets from British Columbia’s Port of Prince Rupert.
That proposal came out of the Western premiers’ meeting in May, and both leaders have said they would like to see it on the list the federal government is compiling of nationally important infrastructure projects.
The project would include the development of the economic corridor between the Prince Rupert port and Hudson Bay, connecting in Churchill, Man., and ultimately tying into the proposed Grays Bay Road and Port project in Nunavut, which would connect rich mineral resources to international shipping routes.
Prime Minister Mark Carney met with the country's premiers in Saskatoon to find a consensus on what major industrial projects Canada should prioritize and quickly approve.
The Canadian Press