‘Devil in the details’ on Alberta-Ottawa energy accord: former pipeline executive

CALGARY — A former energy executive says federal climate policy will have to be finessed in just the right way if Alberta’s push for a “grand bargain” on a new West Coast oilsands pipeline is to pan out.

Dennis McConaghy, who retired from the company now known as TC Energy Corp. more than a decade ago, made the comments after The Globe and Mail reported the Alberta and federal governments were nearing an agreement in support of such a project.

Federal insiders told the newspaper that an easing of a B.C. north coast tanker ban, strengthened industrial carbon pricing and the lowering or removal of the emissions cap were on the table.

McConaghy says the discussions, as reported, are more encouraging than he would have expected, but “the devil is in the details” and industry has to trust that the federal Liberals won’t “flinch.”

He says the federal industrial carbon price can’t be so high that new oilsands developments aren’t viable but must be high enough to make the economics of the Pathways carbon capture proposal work.

Janetta McKenzie, director of the oil and gas program at the Pembina Institute clean energy think tank, says talk of bolstering the industrial carbon price is encouraging, but it will have to be significantly strengthened, with more increases over time, to offset emissions enabled by a new oilsands pipeline.