Canadian oil producers, frustrated by greenwashing 'curve ball', delay environmental reports

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Canada’s biggest oil companies tasted the benefits of the country’s newest oil pipeline for the first time last quarter and they can’t stop talking about it.

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The Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX), which officially opened on May 1 and connects Alberta and British Columbia, has helped Canada’s oil producers get better prices and reduced the price differential between Canadian and U.S. oil.

“We have seen TMX have the impact that … we were looking for,” Geoff Murray, Cenovus Energy Inc.’s executive vice-president, commercial, said on an earnings conference call on Thursday. “We have been provided a relatively exciting access to the globe and that’s had its impact back into Alberta.”

He said that the difference in pricing between U.S. and Canadian oil decreased by about US$6 in the second quarter compared to the first quarter. The decline cannot entirely be attributed to TMX, but he said the new pipeline has played its part.

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The differential, though, did get wider by “a dollar or two” after the second quarter due to refinery outages, but Murray expects the TMX will have a positive impact in Alberta in the long run.

Owned by the federal government, TMX opened after billions of dollars’ worth of cost revisions, several protests from environmentalists and the discovery of about 250,000 artifacts during construction.

The cost to build the new pipeline was initially estimated in 2017 to be around $7.4 billion, but that has ballooned to about $34 billion due to social-distancing procedures during the pandemic, flooding and other reasons, leading to some criticism from the industry.

Cenovus chief executive Jon McKenzie said the money spent on building the new pipeline was “more expensive than it needed to be,” but it will generate a huge amount of revenue for Canadians through royalties and tax dollars and improve the standard of living.

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In the same vein, Scott Stauth, president of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., said the pipeline has had a positive impact on Canada’s economy and represents “a significant achievement” for all Canadians. He noted the narrowing oil differentials as well.

The pipeline added “much-needed egress capacity and increasing exposure to global market pricing for crude oil products,” he said in a statement on Thursday.

While the executives spoke positively about the TMX, both companies expressed their concerns over Canada’s new greenwashing rules and urged for more clarity from the government.

In June, Pathways Alliance, a group formed by Canada’s six largest oilsands companies that is working on reducing carbon emissions, surprised many when it removed all content from its website after the government enacted Bill C-59, which, among other things, addresses what some call greenwashing.

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The act of greenwashing occurs when companies provide false information regarding how environmentally sound their products are or when they deceive the public by making unsubstantiated claims about the steps they are taking to protect the environment or reduce their carbon emissions.

The bill states that the methods promoted by businesses to protect the environment need to be based on verified methods and should be in accordance with “internationally recognized methodology.” The oilsands industry wants more clarity on what this specifically means.

Both Cenovus and Canadian Natural Resources have delayed publishing their environmental reports.

Jeff Lawson, a senior vice-president at Cenovus, said the new law is a “curve ball” that’s frustrating the industry and has been a “tremendous amount of distraction and work for an incredible number of people.”

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He is, however, hopeful of getting more clarity towards the end of the year.

Both companies have said the legislation did not change their commitment to the environment.

Cenovus said it would be returning more money to its shareholders in the coming quarters since it has achieved its debt-reduction target.

Its second-quarter earnings rose to $1 billion, or 53 cents per diluted share, from $866 million and 44 cents, respectively, in the same quarter last year.

Canadian Natural Resources reported adjusted net earnings of $1.89 billion, or 80 cents per diluted share, up from $1.26 billion and 66 cents, respectively, last year.

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nkarim@postmedia.com

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