this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 75 points 5 days ago (4 children)

According to the original source the majority of Albertans do not see it that way (only 44% think she's a traitor), which are realistically the voices who matter the most in getting her out of power.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Things are weird out here. People by and large don't really like what Smith is doing, but they elected her to fight Trudeau, not help Alberta.

For some reason, they can't see that we can't just keep going to the oilsands for infinite money. I thought things were finally getting better when we elected the NDP that one time, but it turns out that unless you can fix Alberta's substantial problems overnight, convincing the Conservative voter base that you aren't the second coming of Stalin is impossible.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 days ago (2 children)

With Trump's new port fees on LNG,oil, coal and container ships, along with The Saudis and OPEC+ absolutely demolishing oil prices it would be extremely stupid to waste money on developing the oilsands right now. There's no money to be made.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think that the scale of investment involved in oil sands development necessitates MUCH longer range planning than relatively short political cycles.

There's may be something to be said maximizing CAPEX when the commodity pricing sucks. Spending pullback from the more boom/bust centric conventional/frac operators reduces competition for trades and key manufacturers.

I think the differentiator at the moment is the lack of predictability. Normally your financial models only have to factor in modest price uncertainty. Right now the tariffs change so quickly that who knows what things will cost. I don't have a clue how you price a project in this environment. I pitty project managers.

Steel plate and pipe is easy to source domestically - especially when the US buyers aren't tying up Evraz capacity. Big inch valves would start to get tricky I think - but it's been over a decade since I was working in that space. Coatings are Dupont and 3M for buried assets - so lots of risk exposure there.

Personally, if I operated any major facilities (fractionation/refineries) I'd be looking at what turnaround/maintenance work I could be pulling forward right now. When oil's booming, you don't want to shut down your money machine to do repairs.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Now might be the best time to build our own refineries.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

This is what I don't get about Alberta. They've always been talking about the oil sands and exploiting their resources, yet why are they always satisfied with simply pumping and piping? Why has there never been a voice for making local refineries so that they can jack up the prices of their tar sands? Why have they been satisfied being used like a third world country when they're always being compared to Texas, that has most of the US's refineries. Why are they happy feeding Texan refineries instead of selling refined products to the entire world at several times the current prices?

Hell, not only raising export prices, but adding a massive number of local jobs as well, instead of giving away such easy jobs to a foreign country? It's not like you need an army of university graduates to operate a a refinery. Most of the jobs there only require a slightly higher level of education as for the tar sands.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I kinda like pet-chem if we're going to do more upgrading - and sure enough we're seeing activity in the space.

Refineries produce gasoline (for old cars), diesel (for old trucks), and oils (there's alternatives). Refineries are for antiquated tech that were trying to phase out IMO.

Upgrading light ends (methane, ethane, propane, etc) are what I'd be investing in if I was looking at fossil fuels investment. We have LOTS of gas plants sweetening and fractionating that stuff so the product streams are there and the emissions intensity of that end is WAY better than liquids.

Dow is building a huge ethane cracker to produce polyethylene. IPL has the Heartland petrochemical complex that's going to be soaking up immense amounts of propane to produce polypropylene pellets. I haven't checked what Nova is up to lately, but I can promise you they're looking to grow in the space.

I don't love polymers, but we COULD recycle it if we were smart and unlike combustion where everything ends up in the atmosphere, a landfill full of plastic is actually carbon sequestration when you think about it.

Methane (natural gas) is worth approximately nothing at the moment, but coastal LNG exports will help China et al. ween off coal while they continue to build out renewables and Europe needs LNG for similar reasons and timescales.

Source - random internet person

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I fully agree that less oil in general is a good thing, and shifting from heavy oils to lighter oils is also a good thing. But if we're going to be extracting and using something anyway, I think processing it ourselves is an improvement as well, and it will somewhat help keep the money AB & SK spend on oil in Canada and reduce our dependence on long pipelines and foreign industry.

Reducing our dependence on oil in the first place would definitely be better, but if we only take the best steps we won't get anywhere.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

While the substance in the sands is neither tar nor oil, I still insist on calling it the Athabasca tar sands, because oil companies want so badly for me to stop calling it the tar sands.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 days ago (1 children)

44% is way more that i would have thought for Alberta more around 10%

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 days ago (1 children)

44 is about the percentage of the people who voted NDP last election. It shouldn't be that surprising.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Well that stat is also surprising to me.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago

I live and work downtown Calgary in an O&G related field (emissions reduction analysis - it's a frustrating job). I listen to a LOT of anti-Smith diatribes. The UCP mostly gets elected by rural ridings. They have about half of Calgary, and I don't know why they even bother running candidates in Edmonton.

There's a lot similarities to BC actually - BC votes conservative (whatever they call themselves) most places outside of Vancouver and Victoria.

There's even recall campaign talk in Calgary at the moment because people are hoping to force an early election to try and force the UCP out. (abresistance.ca for any Calgary homies who are interested in getting involved)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Alberta_general_election

Yeah, literally 44.05 percent of people went for the NDP.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

TBF all the numbers seem low. Alberta's isn't even the lowest.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (3 children)

Hicks are generally unintelligent

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's been my personal experience that dumbasses are just more notable in the country than cities. The overall population per square mile is so much less that you see far fewer people overall, but unless you know where the smart cookies are, you'll miss their homes/workshops entirely - it only seems like there are more of them because the brainiacs run solo or congregate in smaller groups. IMO there aren't just more idiots in cities per se, just that they congregate more noticeably to the point where it sort of throws off the perception of average capacity... does that make sense?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

When smart people move out to the boonies, it's to get away from all people. When dumb people move out to the boonies, it's to get away from smart people and their annoying rules. They still want to hang out with other people and do dumb people stuff with them. So you don't really see smart people out in the boonies, but they are there, just inside.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Yes, that tracks. Check the outbuilding at the back of the property for some guy with a pencil tucked behind his ear while rebuilding a fried 50,000W amplifier for the nearest sports area.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Intelligence can be measured in many ways.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago

this is a whole new crime.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

She should reek of bullets, from a firing squad. The traditional smell of traitors.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 days ago

okay, gramps. don't give yourself skin failure.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago

dani smith is a traitorous cunt!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

She is a Treason weasel... along with PeePee.