Tar Sands

Workers at the Suncor Energy Inc. East Tank Farm have voted overwhelmingly to unite with Unifor, joining 4,000 members as part of local 707A at the company’s extraction facilities in northern Alberta.

Unifor is a Canadian energy union representing over 12,000 members, including Newfoundland and Labrador offshore platform workers, Suncor workers in Alberta’s oilsands, Saskatchewan energy crown corporations’ employees, as well as workers in refineries across several provinces.

Sept 16, 2016 CALGARY — The Alberta government has approved three oilsands projects that it says represent about $4 billion of potential investments, though it’s unclear whether any of the projects will go ahead.

The projects include the Blackpearl Resources’s Blackrod project, Surmont Energy’s Wildwood project, and Husky Energy’s Saleski project that together total about 95,000 barrels of potential production.

Shell Canada Ltd. says the first carbon-capture project in the oil sands has successfully stored one million tonnes of carbon dioxide deep underground after a year of operation.

The company, which developed the $1.35-billion Quest project with the help of $745-million from the Alberta government and $120-million from Ottawa, says the project is operating ahead of schedule and under budget.

Friends,

At Kinder Morgan meeting, one Liberal voter delivers a blistering rebuke of absent MPs

Note: The Trudeau government is preparing to make a yes or no decision on the Kinder Morgan oil tanker project in December. After being elected on a promise to restart the project review, the Liberals reversed their position and went ahead with the National Energy Board process created by Prime Minister Harper.

Back in June, shortly before the Harper-appointed National Energy Board gave a thumbs-up to Kinder Morgan’s oil tanker proposal, the Liberals announced the creation of a new review panel tasked with “restoring public trust in Canada’s environmental and regulatory processes.”

Barely two months later, the panel has failed spectacularly. Not only has the slapdash process failed to restore trust, it has actually dragged our faith in Canada’s pipeline and tanker reviews to historic new lows.

TORONTO, Aug. 18, 2016 /CNW/ - The union bargaining for over 8,500 energy and chemical workers across Canada has reached a three-year deal with Suncor. The collective agreement will set the pattern for Unifor's upcoming negotiations at other companies in the industry.

TransCanada’s Energy East project is the largest tar sands pipeline proposed yet. Stretching from Alberta to New Brunswick, Energy East could carry over 1 million barrels per day of tar sands crude to the Atlantic coast. Despite TransCanada’s promises that Energy East is for domestic gain, they are making plans to export the vast majority and leave us to bear the real costs of climate change, spills and clean-up.

August 10, 2016, BELLINGHAM,, Wa,, USA - No new applications to ship unrefined fossil fuel through Cherry Point can be approved for at least the next two months after Whatcom County Council passed an emergency moratorium Tuesday night, Aug. 9.

The council unanimously passed the moratorium to address concerns about potential public health and safety risks that could come with the increased transportation of unrefined fossil fuels, such as crude oil traveling by rail through the county to two refineries at Cherry Point.

July 30, 2016 - 

It’s been a full 10 days since a Husky Energy pipeline spewed 250,000 litres of heavy oil and diluent into the North Saskatchewan River near Maidstone, Sask.