Or put another way...from another site...
"Everyone is talking about a "fair" royalty without defining what is fair!"
So the oil/gas companies get to
-speculate on land,
- rent the mineral rights from the government
- pay landowners / residence to do seismic (who then pay taxes to the government
- Do the seismic (paying a seismic company who pay taxes, then the employees pay taxes
- Analyse the results (employees get paid who then pay taxes
- Pay to drill a well (drillers/employees pay taxes)
- hopefully discover marketable reserves
- Pay to design and build facilities to produce reserves (companies/employees paying taxes all the way along)
- Give the government their royalties
- Find a buyer for the "peoples" energy
- Final, if they should turn a profit.....pay corporate taxes.
So Eddie Strom er Stelmach wants to upset the apple cart to score points the the socialists.
Alberta is ROLLING in taxes.
The larger the oil/gas producer the easier their capital will leave the province for better rates of return. It all about RoR, which includes costs of production(very high in Alberta) and Risk (was Low in Alberta but is now increasing).
The report was incomplete anyways and always bad policy to go off of incomplete information
As an armchair economist it's always amusing to hear people ranting on about "Big Oil" presumably vs those "mom and pop" offshore drilling and tar sand upgrader projects we all reminesce about. Since the tar sands belong to "the people" perhaps a compromise can be reached whereby for every 100lbs of tar sand mined by "Big Oil" a 100 lb bag of tar sand can be shipped to the home of every Canadian who wants one to do with as they please. As for being "exploited" by "Big Oil", my brother, who works in the oil patch has in turn "exploited" "Big Oil" over the years to the tune of a two storey house, maintenance for a wife, four children and several dogs, cats and hamsters, cars, minivans, vacations and a pension. Numerous others have done the same. Given a choice between the exploitation and the bags of tar sand delivered to the basement, I as a low tax paying Albertan will take the exploitation thank you very much. The fastest way to kill the economy out here will be to morph overnight into another tin pot, business unfriendly jurisdiction in which contracts and government business agreements are worth less than the toilette paper in the washrooms. That's not to say it won't happen. I saw it before with the NEP. Only this time, I've got a wad of cash to clean up on some cheap foreclosed houses.
Re: Big oil, big money etc. We need to get rid of the term "oil," and use "kilowatts." The word "oil" conjures thoughts of a thick, gooey liquid that sticks to your Carhart coveralls or your garage floor. A liquid that spews smoke into the atmosphere when ignited, and makes Calgary oil men greedy and rich.
One US gallon of heavy diesel equals 40 Kilowatt hours. I don't know what a gallon of crude works out to, but a metric tonne of Fort McMurry crude works out to approx. 11,700 Kilowatt hours of energy. For you English chaps, One horsepower hour=.75 Kilowatt hours.
Kilowatts can always be re-converted back to any other form or source of energy.
A lot of the negative attitude towards oil companies is generated by the CBC and Radio-Canada. Have you ever noticed how they always use film footage of the Fort Mac refineries that was shot in sub zero weather. In reality, what you see going up into the atmosphere is water vapour. The film does however tickle the fanny of the "Suzukian Cult."
They (CBC-R-Canada) do the same when they film the power stations at Estevan and Coronach. In sub-zero weather, you can see the stack on the power station at Coronach from 60 miles away. On a warm day, no visible smoke is emmitted.
"Everyone is talking about a "fair" royalty without defining what is fair!"
So the oil/gas companies get to
-speculate on land,
- rent the mineral rights from the government
- pay landowners / residence to do seismic (who then pay taxes to the government
- Do the seismic (paying a seismic company who pay taxes, then the employees pay taxes
- Analyse the results (employees get paid who then pay taxes
- Pay to drill a well (drillers/employees pay taxes)
- hopefully discover marketable reserves
- Pay to design and build facilities to produce reserves (companies/employees paying taxes all the way along)
- Give the government their royalties
- Find a buyer for the "peoples" energy
- Final, if they should turn a profit.....pay corporate taxes.
So Eddie Strom er Stelmach wants to upset the apple cart to score points the the socialists.
Alberta is ROLLING in taxes.
The larger the oil/gas producer the easier their capital will leave the province for better rates of return. It all about RoR, which includes costs of production(very high in Alberta) and Risk (was Low in Alberta but is now increasing).
The report was incomplete anyways and always bad policy to go off of incomplete information
As an armchair economist it's always amusing to hear people ranting on about "Big Oil" presumably vs those "mom and pop" offshore drilling and tar sand upgrader projects we all reminesce about. Since the tar sands belong to "the people" perhaps a compromise can be reached whereby for every 100lbs of tar sand mined by "Big Oil" a 100 lb bag of tar sand can be shipped to the home of every Canadian who wants one to do with as they please. As for being "exploited" by "Big Oil", my brother, who works in the oil patch has in turn "exploited" "Big Oil" over the years to the tune of a two storey house, maintenance for a wife, four children and several dogs, cats and hamsters, cars, minivans, vacations and a pension. Numerous others have done the same. Given a choice between the exploitation and the bags of tar sand delivered to the basement, I as a low tax paying Albertan will take the exploitation thank you very much. The fastest way to kill the economy out here will be to morph overnight into another tin pot, business unfriendly jurisdiction in which contracts and government business agreements are worth less than the toilette paper in the washrooms. That's not to say it won't happen. I saw it before with the NEP. Only this time, I've got a wad of cash to clean up on some cheap foreclosed houses.
Re: Big oil, big money etc. We need to get rid of the term "oil," and use "kilowatts." The word "oil" conjures thoughts of a thick, gooey liquid that sticks to your Carhart coveralls or your garage floor. A liquid that spews smoke into the atmosphere when ignited, and makes Calgary oil men greedy and rich.
One US gallon of heavy diesel equals 40 Kilowatt hours. I don't know what a gallon of crude works out to, but a metric tonne of Fort McMurry crude works out to approx. 11,700 Kilowatt hours of energy. For you English chaps, One horsepower hour=.75 Kilowatt hours.
Kilowatts can always be re-converted back to any other form or source of energy.
A lot of the negative attitude towards oil companies is generated by the CBC and Radio-Canada. Have you ever noticed how they always use film footage of the Fort Mac refineries that was shot in sub zero weather. In reality, what you see going up into the atmosphere is water vapour. The film does however tickle the fanny of the "Suzukian Cult."
They (CBC-R-Canada) do the same when they film the power stations at Estevan and Coronach. In sub-zero weather, you can see the stack on the power station at Coronach from 60 miles away. On a warm day, no visible smoke is emmitted.
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