I don’t know about you but, I’m getting the feeling that the upper echelonials in the energy field, as well as politicians worthy of office (or clinging on to one), are all rushing to be first in line for a Mad Hatter’s tea party with the consumer trailing the parade down an economic rabbit hole to who knows where!
The enviro alarmists and People with Placards have now infiltrated the boardrooms and mindsets of the hierarchy in the fossil fuel industry.
Their insistence on the elimination of hydrocarbon related energy has not produced a whisper of concern from either President Biden or his good buddy Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The global consensus from the activists and the mysterious International Energy Agency (IEA) is that all investment or interest in new crude oil or hydrocarbon development plans or projects must stop immediately.
Our prime minister is well ahead of the game since under his watch (if he’s even watching) shows his lack of support or outright resistance to his own country’s oil and gas sector that has choked off Alberta’s ability to source other customer bases, which now only occupy one base — the US of A.
Northern Gateway, the B.C. coastal tanker ban, the Keystone XL, Energy East, and now Line 5 have all been filed away in Trudeau’s, “I’ll get back to this later… …..maybe” accordion file.
Not to be outdone, President Biden has reversed the Trump approval of drilling leases for new oil and gas in Alaska.
My question is: if fossil fuels account for 80% of energy use and this demand is to be “fossilized”, when and how will this happen? And, if it does what will be the result?
The transition of the electric car for the transportation sector will not happen overnight, just after the annual boardroom dinner. It will take at least another 10 years for the transition to be even noticeable in the developed nations of the world and nonexistent in the undeveloped.
If the activists continue to pressure shareholders resulting in the drawback of investment and development of hydrocarbon portfolios will this then stop demand for gasoline, diesel and jet fuel? Maybe in an Alice in Wonderland world but this is the real world.
If investors in the oil sands and shale industry pull their funds and shut down these sources of crude, then guess who comes out the winner and who comes out the loser?
The winner will be the one who will be asked to fill the supply void. Ironically, this will be OPEC and its family of followers led by your friend and mine — Russia.
The loser will be the North American oil and gas industry and all of its employees.
And don’t forget the lowly consumer who relies on gasoline and diesel as an essential part of their daily lives.
With OPEC once again in charge of supply, prices of crude and refined products prices will do nothing but increase.
My advice to politicians is to check how deep that rabbit hole is before they join the Mad Hatter’s tea party because consumers are on the invitation list.
– Roger McKnight – B.Sc., Senior Petroleum Analyst
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