OPEC president calls on Canada to develop ties to cartel

[CHIMO]

Calgary — Canada would benefit from closer ties with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the head of the oil cartel said in Calgary Monday ahead of a visit to the Alberta oil sands.

“Canada could well get to a point where they would have to begin to listen to what OPEC is saying ... and maybe, god knows, even a common dialogue with OPEC,” Edmund Daukoru, OPEC president and Nigerian oil minister, told a gathering of reporters at a meeting hosted by FirstEnergy Capital Corp., which organized the visit.

Canada, already the No. 1 exporter of crude oil to the United States, produces about 2.5-million barrels of oil a day, putting it among top 10 global producers. Output is predicted to rise to 4.5-million b/d by 2015 as oil sands production increases. That level would make Canada the No. 4 producer in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia, Russia and the U.S.

“Our model is that we market the crude as it's produced,” Mr. Melchin told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview published Oct. 13. “It's not our policy to hold onto our resources and prevent them from being developed.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.2006...

[Kagemusha]

1. About that last paragraph quoted...

Isn't it going to be a NAFTA violation if Canada does anything else but market crude as it's produced?

[CHIMO]

2. Don't

Believe so. I believe it is such that if the US wants the oil Canada must maintain the same shipments or percentage of production. But that is all screwed up anyway, as Canada imports a lot of oil itself, to supply the eastern areas of the country.

It is a bit ironic as some twenty years ago, the then premier was pleading to Opec to let them join. Now we have a situation where there will be minimum work for value added and it will be shipped south for further processing. In addition to losing the companies to minimum Canadian ownership.

[applegrove]

3. We have laws against that I think. n/t

[CHIMO]

4. What Laws

Against what?

[applegrove]

5. Anti-trust laws. Anti-combines. Price setting laws..... don't we have them?

[CHIMO]

6. Oh

You mean like the CWB.

[applegrove]

7. I'm guessing that is the American anti-trust law? I know, I know...what

good will that do. We are talking oil here. Seems our country has to follow yours in every single way... till we are only a shadow of you ..then we can merge.

[CHIMO]

8. It

Stands for the Canadian Wheat Board.

Ending wheat board monopoly 'un-Canadian': president
Last Updated: Thursday, October 19, 2006 | 6:11 PM CT
CBC News

The Harper government's plan to strip the Canadian Wheat Board of its monopoly powers and let farmers market their own grain "is as wrong as it is un-Canadian," the board's president says.

In a speech to the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, Adrian Measner said most farmers support the board because it gets a better price for their grain on the international market, while giving farmers a voice through the ten farmers they elect to its board of directors.

"The federal government can enter into an open and unbiased dialogue with the board of directors on how to maintain integrity in the organization while seeing if more flexibility for farmers can be achieved," Measner said Thursday.

"As it is, we're being told that government will proceed with the implementation of its election promise on creating an open market for wheat and barley, regardless of what a majority of farmers think and regardless of the facts that we can present. This is as wrong as it is un-Canadian."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/saskatchewan/story/2006/10/19/...

I surmise that you are saying that it would be against Canadian law to join OPEC because it would be considered against anti trust laws.

Well one just has to look to Russia to see how they are able to stick handle out of perceived iron clad agreements from the six sisters

[applegrove]

9. That is also suddenly under attack. I wonder how the neocons will

spin that? If Wheat Board collapses while Alberta joins OPEC.

[LeftistGorilla]

10. I wish we had the balls....

After getting screwed on the Soft Wood Lumber "Deal"