For its part, Imperial Oil is just saying a polite "no" to equity stakes.
Meanwhile, Imperial is having trouble getting the permits needed to build the project. The problem is not with the company but with the federal government's inability to make appointments to four boards that must oversee the permits.
The permits are just one issue affecting go-ahead with the natural gas pipeline that is estimated to cost $7.5 billion to construct.
But here are a couple of observations on this issue and how it relates to Newfoundland and Labrador:
1. No one else wants to be President of Parador... except Danny Williams.
Some people compare Danny Williams to Hugo Chavez. I say the comparison is more like Danny Williams and Adolphe Simms, except Williams is not an actor playing the role.
Too bad.
Then maybe he could take some advice.
But I digress.
The equity stake discussed in the Mackenzie Valley pipeline stories linked above is being considered purely as a means of providing financial support to the project. Williams has just loaded the whole concept with so much emotional baggage he has actually managed to sink Hebron for years and may well have further discouraged any further development offshore, let alone exploration.
2. Regulatory Boards are important. Note that this project is being held up because the government involved can't sort out its appointments to the regulatory boards involved.
The board regulating the local offshore did quite well despite being set back in its timelines as the Premier demonstrated not only his political impotence but also - apparently - a doubtful ability to read and comprehend the law through the Andy Wells fiasco.
Maybe Jim Bennett could have asked Danny for advice on how to handle having as Supreme Court justice toss your arguments out the window as so much codswallop.
Anyway...
Regulatory boards are a key part of the system. The feds need to get that boards issue sorted if they want the Mac pipeline to proceed. Around here, things might have gone much more smoothly if Danny Williams had let the original selection process proceed, rather than try to put in the fix on Hebron using Andy Wells.
3. Kiss the Lower Churchill goodbye too... unless.
The federal government - the current one - has no interest in provided loan guarantees to megaprojects let alone megalomaniacs trying to run megaprojects.
Stephen Harper has been perfectly consistent on this point.
Just recall what Harper actually said last winter, instead of what Danny Williams told you Harper said.
Harper actually said he was prepared to support the Lower Churchill in the same way the feds supported Hibernia. This is how he put in the formal reply to Williams' wish list during the last election. Since Danny places so much stock in the written word - when it is convenient - then here are the words, as written by Harper:
A Conservative government would welcome discussions on this initiative and would hope that the potential exists for it to proceed in the spirit of past successes such as the Hibernia project.So here it is: On its own, Newfoundland and Labrador does not have the financial ability to float the loans needed to construct a $9.0 billion megaproject.
It needs partners.
The only way the feds will help is in the form of an equity position.
Meanwhile, Hydro Quebec is moving ahead with its own megaprojects that will likely start construction and achieve first power well before the Lower Churchill, even under the most optimistic situation. They stand a good chance of getting capital and the markets that would otherwise go to Lower Churchill simply because the provincial government here miscalculated yet again on a big economic project.
So the issue for Danny Williams comes down to this: is he prepared to let Stephen Harper acquire an equity position in the Lower Churchill project that would let Williams build the project at all?
Is he prepared to treat the Government of Canada just like Altius, for example, which is seeking an equity stake as well?
The one thing that doesn't seem to be in question:
There'll be no federal loan guarantees for the Lower Churchill, at least not under a Harper government. And without the federal government's deep pockets, there won't be a Danny Williams monument at Muskrat Falls and Gull Island.
