<\/p>\n
Premier Mark Carney will sign a memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Daniel Smith in Calgary in November 2025.<\/span>Jeff McIntosh\/Canadian Press<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The latest business sentiment survey from ATB Cormark Capital Markets suggests that confidence in new oil pipelines being selected for expedited federal review within the next year is waning. <\/p>\n From March 18 to April 1, the investment firm consulted executives representing 24 energy services companies, 22 exploration and production companies, and 17 institutional investors on a variety of topics. <\/p>\n Forty-six percent of respondents said they believe it is very likely or likely that new pipeline projects will be added to the list of projects deemed to be in the national interest under federal law passed last year. <\/p>\n This is down from the 52% of respondents who expressed that opinion in a survey conducted between August 28 and September 11 last year. That was more than two months before Alberta and Ottawa announced a comprehensive energy agreement setting out terms for moving forward with construction of a new West Coast oil pipeline. <\/p>\n \u201cThe public is losing confidence that the Liberal government will actually solve the structural problems it has created over the past decade,\u201d an anonymous executive at a publicly traded exploration and production company said in a written comment accompanying the study. <\/p>\n Another executive at a small private energy services company called for “less talk and more action” in a written comment. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not just one project. [in oil and gas] has come to fruition,\u201d the executive wrote. <\/p>\n “Let’s start construction, or better yet, get out of the way of industry. We need clear and concise direction from federal authorities to support and expedite new projects.” <\/p>\n In the spring 2026 survey, 48 per cent of respondents said Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government would be proactive about expanding the energy sector, up from 37 per cent in the fall 2025 survey, but this is a more positive view of the prime minister than the outlook for pipelines.<\/p>\n Premier Carney and Alberta Premier Daniel Smith signed a memorandum of understanding last November on a wide range of energy issues. This included a path to deeming new oil sands pipelines to the West Coast subject to reasonable review.<\/p>\n Such a project would transport up to 1 million barrels per day to the West Coast for export to Asia, reducing Canada’s dependence on the U.S. market. The Alberta government is preparing an application to the federal Major Projects Authority later this year, with the goal of eventually handing over the project to a private company. <\/p>\n Moving forward, the pipeline is tied to the construction of large-scale Pathways carbon capture and storage projects and, ultimately, higher industrial carbon prices that support the economy. <\/p>\n ATB Comark’s investigation period ended just as the deadline for Pathways’ funding and implementation of a higher carbon price set out in the MOU was about to expire. Those parts remain unresolved.<\/p>\n Patrick O’Rourke, managing director of institutional equity research at ATB Cormark, said the bleak outlook on the pipeline issue could be related to the timing of the research period, when there was uncertainty about whether deadlines would be met. <\/p>\n Despite the skeptical survey responses, there were many constructive aspects of the agreement between Alberta and Ottawa, he said. <\/p>\n “The fact that we even had the federal government and the state governments at the same table was almost unbelievable a few years ago,” he said. <\/p>\n Survey respondents also expressed more optimism about a proposal to revive part of the decommissioned Keystone XL cross-border pipeline, which is being pursued by Southbow Corp. SOBO-T in collaboration with Bridger Pipeline LLC, than about the West Coast pipeline, which no private company has previously expressed interest in building. <\/p>\n “We’re seeing a desire from our trading partners in both Canada and the United States to continue to expand our ability to move barrels north and south,” O’Rourke said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe challenges with moving from east to west are probably more significant.\u201d<\/p>\n The spring 2026 survey captured a period of extreme commodity price fluctuations due to the Middle East wars. The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which 20% of the world’s crude oil supply normally passes on its way to the open sea, is largely frozen to tanker traffic. <\/p>\n World oil prices have risen by up to 70% from pre-war levels, but have since fallen slightly. <\/p>\n 86% of respondents in the exploration and production sector said their business outlook for the next six months will improve, and 67% of respondents in the energy services sector said they expected activity levels to pick up. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, 82% of buy-side investor respondents said they had become more bullish on energy in the past six months. <\/p>\n \u201cMany of these companies have business models that work very well even at $70 to $75 oil prices. [per barrel] range,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said. <\/p>\n “So I don’t think you need $90 to $100 oil for any length of time to make these businesses attractive investments.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Survey #finds #energy #industrys #confidence #oil #pipelines #built #quickly #fading<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Open this photo in gallery: Premier Mark Carney will sign a memorandum of understanding with Alberta Premier Daniel Smith in Calgary in November 2025.Jeff McIntosh\/Canadian Press The latest business sentiment survey from ATB Cormark Capital Markets suggests that confidence in new oil pipelines being selected for expedited federal review within the next year is waning. … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[523,508,524,498,496,525,544,53,497,495,515,516,511,541,520,521,539,121,546,514,538,506,536,499,500,513,540,509,510,503,526,504,531,532,534,529,533,542,527,505,530,501,543,518,519,517,528,545,507,537,410,522,512,502,535],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-alberta","tag-art-news","tag-b-c","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-built","tag-canada","tag-canada-breaking-news","tag-canada-news","tag-canadian-sports","tag-canadian-sports-news","tag-canadian-transportation-canadian-weather","tag-confidence","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-energy","tag-environment","tag-fading","tag-federal-government","tag-finds","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-email","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-industrys","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut-territory","tag-oil","tag-ontario","tag-our-news","tag-pay","tag-photograph","tag-pipelines","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-quebec","tag-quickly","tag-sports-news","tag-survey","tag-technology","tag-trip","tag-trudeau","tag-world-news","tag-yukon-territory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yasbou.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}