Investors Decry BP’s Entry Into Tar Sands

Statement to be submitted at BP annual meeting today in London

(CSRwire) BOSTON, MA - April 16, 2008 - A group of American and British investors released a statement today expressing disappointment at BP’s (NYSE: BP) investment in the Canadian tar sands, calling the move a “disturbing step backwards.” A representative from the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility intends the statement at BP’s annual stockholder meeting, which is taking place today at ExCeL London in London Docklands at 11:30 a.m. GMT. The investor group includes Trillium Asset Management, Boston Common Asset Management, MMA Praxis Mutual Funds, Christian Brothers Investment Services, the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility, Rathbone Greenbank Investments, Newground Investments, Pax World, Northstar Asset Management, Sierra Club Funds and Green Century Capital Management.

In December 2007, BP announced its entry into the tar sands business via two joint ventures with Husky Energy of Canada (Toronto: HSE.TO) with a total joint investment of $3 billion. Husky brings its “Sunrise” oil sand project to an upstream partnership, and BP will contribute a refinery based in Toledo, OH. The first output is expected to commence in 2012, and build to 200,000 barrels per day within a decade.

Citing the heavy environmental footprint of the tar sands, which have caused Canada to fall behind in meeting its Kyoto Protocol commitments, the statement also raises questions about BP’s long term business strategy. “We fear the implication that BP is retreating from an excellent strategic position designed to exploit the long term shift away from high-carbon fuel sources, and question whether this may undermine [BP's] future competitiveness…..We do not wish to see the benefits of BP’s leadership as a renewable energy innovator and market leader to be offset by the harsh environmental impacts unleashed by tar sands development.”

Stern Underestimates Climate Crisis

By Gerard Wynn

LONDON, April 16 (Reuters) - Climate change expert Nicholas Stern says he under-estimated the threat from global warming in a major report 18 months ago when he compared the economic risk to the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Latest climate science showed global emissions of planet-heating gases were rising faster and upsetting the climate more than previously thought, Stern said in a Reuters interview on Wednesday.

For example, evidence was growing that the planet’s oceans — an important “sink” — were increasingly saturated and couldn’t absorb as much as previously of the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), he said.

“Emissions are growing much faster than we’d thought, the absorptive capacity of the planet is less than we’d thought, the risks of greenhouse gases are potentially bigger than more cautious estimates, and the speed of climate change seems to be faster,” he told Reuters at a conference in London.

It’s the Tar Sands Stupid

Joseph Raglione

April 17, 2008

Gentle readers of the American Chronicle:

This article was deep in my files hidden from the world.

I am deeply sorry, but it will be Canada who will completely destroy the United States of America and the following is how we are doing it… I quote…

“It’s the Tar Sands, Stupid: Canada Home to Global Warming’s New Ground Zero

By Mitchell Anderson

The Tyee (Vancouver), December 4, 2007

Straight to the Source…

You can’t practice abstinence while running a brothel. Yet politicians of almost all stripes talk simultaneously about developing the Alberta oil sands while getting serous about reducing carbon emissions. Sound like a crock? It is.

Beyond arcane terms like “emissions trading” and “carbon credits,” climate change is actually very simple: Every time we extract ancient carbon out of the ground and burn it we are making climate change worse. The more you burn, the worse it gets.

Bearing in mind that simple truth, how much extractable oil is in the Alberta oil sands? That is one area where industry and environmentalists agree. It’s a lot — about 175 billion barrels. That is second only to the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Beyond this massive storehouse of ancient carbon, the additional problem with the oil sands is that is takes a colossal amount of energy to extract and refine the extremely low-grade tar deposits that cover more than 20 per cent of the Alberta landmass.

The oil sands are mostly rock and sand — only 12 per cent is bitumen. This tar must then be upgraded at enormous energy cost to synthetic crude. That process consumes about 700 million cubic feet of natural gas each day — enough to heat over 3.7 million Canadian homes. That massive waste of finite and comparatively clean natural gas is expected to triple in the next eight years. Of course there is no point in creating synthetic crude oil unless you are eventually going to burn it — that is what the oil business is all about. These “downstream” emissions are four times as great as the carbon released during oil sands production.

How Alberta will cook us…

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: alberta, climate change, deforestation, ed stelmach, global warming, greenhouse gases, oil sands, stelmach, stephen harper, tar sands | 1 Comment »