UCP Leader Danielle Smith makes her victory speech in Calgary on Monday May 29, 2023. In the aftermath of Alberta's election, the province's oil and gas sector is facing a big unknown around the question of government support for decarbonization. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
CALGARY – In the aftermath of Alberta’s election, the province’s oil and gas sector is facing a big unknown around the question of government support for decarbonization.
Dennis McConaghy, a former executive vice-president at TransCanada Corp., now TC Energy, says it’s not clear whether Danielle Smith’s UCP government will be willing to supplement already-announced federal financial support for carbon capture and storage technology in Alberta’s oilsands.
For example, the Pathways Alliance, a consortium of oilsands companies, has proposed spending $16.5 billion on a massive carbon capture and storage network to help it reach Canada’s goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
McConaghy says he believes an NDP government would have been more inclined to provide new financial supports for that project, above and beyond the federal tax credit that has already been announced.
But he says on the flip side, a UCP government will be more likely to go to bat against Ottawa on any proposed emissions cap on the sector that threatens to curtail the industry’s production or growth.
He says for those reasons, he considers Monday’s election results to be a “mixed bag of pluses and minuses” for Alberta’s largest industry.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 30, 2023.
