Another good Lower Churchill question

Ok.

So the political theatre that is the Lower Churchill project is now pulling into a another location already mapped out on the route.

It is a route pre-determined by amendments to the Electrical Power Control Act in 2007 but only put into force this past January.

That’s right.

2007.

Two whole years ago.

Because the provincial government’s energy corporation couldn’t reach a deal on water management on the Churchill River with Churchill Falls (Labrador) Corporation, the whole thing is headed off to the public utilities board where the Premier’s hand-picked appointee and a couple of other people will oversee the imposition of an agreement.

Hands up anyone who thinks the water management agreement that inevitably results from this process will not be exactly what the government’s energy corporation wants it to be.

And what exactly makes this some sort of giant obstacle supposedly thrown by  Hydro Quebec to the development of a project which – as of this moment – has no customers, no financing and which, by the Premier’s own version of things is not even close to being started?

Good question.

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How lucky are we, again?

Energy analyst Tom Adams recently wrote that “Newfoundlanders are lucky that Nalcor, their Crown energy company, is not out in the market the trying to sell high cost power right now.”

Yep.

We’re lucky alright.

Really lucky.

No one would ever head to New York City to try and flog a very expensive project at a time when energy prices are low and capital is really hard to come by to build the project in the first place.

Not on your life.

“We will showcase Newfoundland and Labrador as a prospective location for investment and focus specifically on our province’s potential as a long-term producer of competitive and reliable green energy through the Lower Churchill project.”

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It’s Fire Truck Season now?

Well if Tom Hedderson is putting on his firefighter’s hat to go visit Joan Burke, you know it’s either to announce another fire truck, officially kick off the November sweeps month with the government’s official pollster or both.

At this rate fire trucks could be the key to keeping those government-paid polls artificially government-goosed.

Zombie News Update:  Not only did Tom show up to announce a fire truck, he also showed up to announce money for capital works that have already been completed or which will be completed in a couple of weeks.

Holy blatant poll goose Batman.

Talk about the hypocrisy of recycling old money announcements for fairly blatant political gain.

 

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Flu Trends – using the Internet to spot emerging health concerns

By now some of you will be familiar with Google’s Flu Trends, a website that shows in general form, the intensity of Google search activity for keywords related to influenza, by country and region.

The trending analysis is shown both as a map and in a graph which you can access by clicking on the country and then the region within the country.

That’s the one for Newfoundland and Labrador, at right.

The lighter blue lines represent the search patterns in prior years.  The dark blue one is 2009.

Now right away, the big, sudden jump might catch your attention.

But look for a second in the period just before that.  Note the steady increase in activity.  That means that within the province – starting in early September there was an increase in google searches in this province using terms related to influenza. 

That includes symptoms.  Someone types in “aches + fever + cough”  or something along those lines and then clicks to see what websites come back in the search results.

Increasing numbers of people are using the Internet to search for information about medical conditions.  They could be looking to diagnose themselves – not a good idea – or for things they know, like colds and flu, they may just be looking for some simple information on treating their symptoms.

Not surprisingly there is an online journal –started a decade ago – that is dedicated to health research and the Internet.  There are even terms for the study of information trends online.  Infodemiology is basically the Google Flu trends sort of thing.  It’s about finding and analysing trends in information about health, how it is found and how it is passed around.   Infoveillance is taking all the information gathered in infodemiology and figuring out what it means.

To get a sense of what this is about, you can skim through a slide show by Gunther Eysenbach, a physician and associate professor of health policy at the University of Toronto. Dr. Eysenbach demonstrates how it is possible to use the Internet to gather information both formally through things like online surveys or by collecting tweets and similar information information to spot trends.

The value of this form of intelligence gathering and analysis should be pretty obvious:  those responsible for delivering health care in an emergency can spot any trends and hopefully be prepared.  It’s like monitoring seismic activity or other geological information to see if there is a way of predicting earthquakes. online surveillance for these health purposes is also very similar in some respects to police agencies that use similar pattern-searches  to get advance warning of terrorist or other criminal activity.

Analysing the information in things like tweets can also be a good source of feedback for health policy experts as to what information is in demand or what information is being shared.  Eysenbach conducted a study of tweets during the spring outbreak of H1N1.  In a sample of 400 tweets drawn from a total of 300,000 collected by his system, Eysenbach found that

News posts were the most common type of information shared (46%) followed by public health education (19.18%) and H1N1-related humour (18.25%). 36.75% of all posts quoted news articles verbatim and provided URLs to the source. 

Take that, CNN and USA Today!

His research was prompted by news reports that suggested social media  - like Twitter and facebook - was fuelling rumour, misinformation and hysteria and thereby feeding a panic about H1N1.

This is just one aspect of a much larger change currently underway in society. In researching social media and health issues, your humble e-scribbler came across trending analysis using the Internet.

Fascinating, as Spock would say.

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AG report makes up old recommendation, gives no real update on small business program

The section of the recently released auditor general update report that deals with small business fund in the provincial innovation department relies on a recommendation that wasn’t contained in the initial report.

All the same, the report claims that the department has begun complying with the AG recommendations for a 2007 review.

The invented recommendation and supposed compliance are also included – apparently – among the 80% of the recommendations the 2009 AG report claims have been acted on within two years.

According to the 2009 update, the lone recommendation on the small business fund was this:

The Department should ensure all required documentation is on file to
support applications, payments for funding and monitoring.

But the original report – released in early 2008 - contained a total of five recommendations, none of which was the one cited by auditor general John Noseworthy in 2009:

The third real recommendation – related to security for disbursed funds - is particularly important since one of the companies apparently reviewed by the initial audit has since gone belly up.

There is no reference to the bankruptcy in the 2009 update report nor does the auditor general discuss at all whether or not the public money in the company was secured.

There was also no reference to the first recommendation from 2007. That one suggested there may be no legal basis for the department to operate the fund in the way it had been operated in the first place.

In fact, there’s no reference at all in the 2009 review to how the fund actually operates three years after the period covered by the first review.

Compare that, however, to the significant problems found in the 2007 report:

• there was “no explicit authority under the Financial Administration Act for the Department to make direct investments in companies” and yet in a single year the department made three investments totalling “$1,050,000 to three companies”;
• There were “no documented procedures for approving, disbursing and monitoring such unique investments and, as a result, these investments were not subject to the same due diligence required for investments under the SME Fund. “
• “[N]one of the three companies were required to repay the investment
  contingent on either income earned or a maximum seven year period;”
• “one company was not required to submit documentation to support
  specific expenditures;”
• “shareholders for one company (Knowledge-based IT Company A) who received $500,000 were not required to make new equity investments as part of their contribution to the project; instead, previous investments were accepted;”
• “shareholders for one company (Knowledge-based IT Company B) who received $500,000 were not required to provide personal net worth statements;” and
• “Department officials were not entitled to attend any company meetings for one company (Knowledge-based IT Company B) even though the company was provided with funding totalling $500,000.”

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Oil production down by almost 29% in first half of FY 2009

Oil production in Fiscal Year 2009 (Apr 09 – Mar 10) is on track to fall below even the low-ball estimates used in the spring provincial budget. 

The provincial government estimated oil production in 2009 would be 98 million barrels.  That’s 21% below 2008, based on the production for Calendar Year 2008 (Jan to Dec) of 125.3 million barrels.*

Actual production in the first half of the fiscal year was 44.5 million barrels (mbbls), according to figures available from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board.  Average monthly production has been 7.42 mbbls.

By comparison, in the first six months of FY 2008, production was 62.5 mbbls with a monthly average of 10.41 mbbls.

Oil production from the three fields offshore was down 41% in August 2009 compared to August 2008.  There was also 39% less oil pumped in May 2009 and 34% less in September 2009 on a year over year comparison.

Total oil production in FY 2008 was 123.4 mbbls.  That means that production in the second half of 2008 was actually below production in the first half of the year.

While it isn’t inconceivable that production will ramp up between September and March, it seems unlikely to hit the 2008 average production level of 10.41 mbbls per month. 

That’s about what would be needed to generate any significant oil revenues above the budget projections, and using current prices.

	FY 2008	FY 2009	% +/-
Apr	10, 616, 444	9, 116, 213	-14
May	11, 403, 549	6, 915, 304	-39
Jun	8, 978, 865	7, 374, 739	-18
Jul	11, 288, 144	8, 629, 918	-24
Aug	11, 085, 392	6, 537, 149	-41
Sep	9, 400, 105	6, 164, 639	-34
Cumul 6 mo	62.5 mbbls	44.5 mbbls	-28.8
Avg per mo	10.41 mbbls	7.42 mbbls	-28.7

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*  21% of the actual fiscal year production would be 97 million barrels.

And now from the “No D’uh” economics desk…

1.  OPEC is warning that sustained high oil prices coupled with a weakened economy – like say in the Untied States? – could push demand for crude oil downward. Oil demand may not reach the pre-crisis level in the near to medium term.

2.  World Bank head Robert Zoellick is concerned about the persistently high jobless numbers in the United States and the impact that could have on economic recovery globally. The unofficial jobless rate could be as high as 20%, according to former labour secretary Bob Reich.  Officially it is only half that.

3.  TD Economics forecasts that Canada will experience “tepid” growth over the next decade. 

"It is critical to recognize that things will not simply return to how they were," TD economist Grant Bishop says in the report published Tuesday.

Yes, Grant, we are all glad the gang at TD Economics figured out – finally – that the crisis meant change.  When things change they aren’t the same afterward as they were before the crisis. It just takes some people a while to figure that out, apparently.

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Where’s Joey? The Churchill Falls contract signing, 1969

Signing the contract to develop Churchill Falls in 1969 are, left to right, Yvon de Guise and Jean-Claude Lesard of Hydro Quebec and Donald McParland and Eric Lambert of Brinco, the private sector company that held rights to develop natural resources in Newfoundland and Labrador. [Photo reproduced from Philip Smith, Brinco: the story of Churchill Falls, (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975).]

Contrary to popular mythology the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador did not negotiate the deal to develop the hydroelectric complex at Churchill Falls.

 

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Twice the citizen

From the Remembrance Day edition of the Telegram, a fine account of two local soldiers’ experiences with the modern Canadian Army at home and overseas.

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So where’s NALCOR?

The 17th annual bilateral (U.S.-Canada) conference on energy issues is taking place in Boston this Thursday and Friday.

The conference theme is North American Energy:  Forging Ahead in the Current Economic and Environmental Climate.

Everyone who is anyone in energy issues on the northeast of the continent will be there as a sponsor and on the program.

Except the scrappy little energy company that Danny Williams would like to flip  some day. 

That’s right.

NALCOR Energy is nowhere to be seen.

All the big players are there as platinum level sponsors.

Newfoundland and Labrador is being represented by the provincial government which booked in for the second cheapest sponsorship level ($1500).

And the Newfoundland and Labrador representative on the program is none other than than…

Nope.

Not the Premier.

Jean Charest is a keynote speaker, though.

Nope.

Not Ed Martin.

Not even Kathy Dunderdale.

There’s only Wes Foote, an assistant deputy minister in the natural resources department.

And he’s not even an electricity guy.

Wes is the oil ADM.

If you really want to develop the supposed energy hub of North America surely goodness you’d be out there marketing the heck out of the oil, gas and electricity opportunities in Newfoundland and Labrador at a conference where all the people who matter are showing up.

And you’d be using the state-owned energy monopoly to do it.

But NALCOR isn’t there at all in a prominent spot.

What gives?

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MIA AG report pops up

The auditor general update report that appeared and then disappeared a couple of weeks ago is back.

This time all the links work.

No explanation of the mysterious appearance and disappearance in the last week of October, though.

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Oil royalties down 57% from 2008; 15% below budget so far for 2009

Forget the bubble, the imaginary protection Newfoundland and Labrador supposedly enjoyed from the global recession.

Forget any prospect of another windfall year in 2009 like the one in 2008.

The prospect of a balanced budget  - let alone a slashed deficit - could be dim if provincial oil royalty figures thus far in the fiscal year hold true to the end of March 2010.

According to figures released by the federal natural resources department (NRCAN), Newfoundland and Labrador averaged $89.6 million a month in oil royalties for the first five months of 2009. 

That’s about 57% below the average monthly 2008 oil royalties, based on $2.5 billion over 12 months.

It’s also 15% below the projected oil royalty figure contained in 2009 Estimates.  If that trend continues, the provincial oil royalties would come in at around $1.08 billion instead of  the $1.262 billion forecast in the Estimates. 

Budget 2009 projected a $1.3 billion cash shortfall on a cash basis (The Estimates) and a $750 million shortfall on an accrual basis (The Budget Speech).  In 2007, the current provincial government quietly reversed the practice established in 2003 and began to report the province’s budget using both accrual and modified cash accounting.

Without significant changes in other revenues, dramatic spending cuts or a combination of both, it’s going to be tough for the provincial government to avoid a deficit this year and it may well wind up with a larger deficit than forecast.

While other areas of the economy may be performing better than expected, it’s doubtful they be able to generate the added revenue for the provincial treasury  that came from oil within the past few years. 

Borrowing would seem to be inevitable, whether it was borrowing from banks or borrowing from the $1.8 billion in temporary investments the provincial government had on hand last spring.  Some of that $1.8 billion is committed to other projects, however.

The table below shows the monthly oil royalty figures for April to August 2009 as well as the offshore oil production from April to September and the average royalty per barrel for each month. 

Month	Royalty  ($)	Production (barrels)	Average royalty amount per barrel ($)
Apr	94, 344, 222. 11	9, 116, 213	10.34
May	77, 970, 776. 28	6, 915, 304	11.25
Jun	97, 572, 585. 54	7, 374, 739	13.23
Jul	89, 287, 050. 27	8, 629, 918	10.34
Aug	49, 851, 328. 75	6, 537, 149	7.62
Sep	N/A	6, 164, 839	N/A
Total	448, 461, 684. 47*	44, 738, 162**	N/A
Average	89, 692, 336. 89*	7, 456, 360**	N/A

* First five months

** Six months

The August royalty total is particularly low due to decreased production at White Rose for planned maintenance. The September figure may also be low due to scheduled maintenance. 

The production figures are taken from the Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador  Offshore Petroleum Board website.

Bond Papers tried unsuccessfully to get the information from the provincial finance department before contacting NRCAN.

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Freedom from Information: oil royalties version

After two e-mail requests to the provincial finance department yielded nothing but delays for two weeks, a simple e-mail to the federal natural resources department produced information on the provincial oil royalties the provincial finance department had trouble releasing.

And it only took four working days.

The request on October 21 to the provincial finance department was simple enough:

What is the total offshore royalty received by the provincial government from 01 Apr 09 to 30 September 2009?

The first response (October 23) from the department spokesperson said:

The information you are requesting is provided at the end of the year in the public accounts and can be made available to you at that time.

Of course, the estimates are publicised at the end of the fiscal year but the audited financial statements  - the public accounts -  for 2009 won’t be released until February 2011. 

That seemed like an unusually long and unnecessary wait for information that should be readily available.

Oil royalties are collected each month by the federal natural resources department (NRCAN) under the terms of the 1985 Atlantic Accord.  The amounts collected are set by the provincial government through its own royalty regimes for Hibernia, Terra Nova and White Rose.  The royalties collected are turned over in their entirety to the provincial finance department monthly.

A second request (October 23) to provincial finance asked for the reason the information was being withheld.   The reply to that inquiry came on November 4, 2009 and gave a new, more curious response:

For the particular timeframe of your request, the department is still receiving the relevant information.  When the data collection is complete, the information will be made available. 

Still receiving information?  Now that’s a bit of an odd idea since the finance department should be in the process of completing a mid-year financial update for public release.  The figures on oil royalties would be sitting right there on someone’s computer, presumably since they form a very big part of the provincial government’s annual revenues. 

If nothing else, finance officials produce monthly statements of account showing revenues and expenditures both for government as a whole and for individual departments.   It would be exceedingly strange if the finance department didn’t have the figures for at least April to August. 

As it is, your humble e-scribbler went looking for the information in October.  It might have been a bit optimistic to get even the September figures.  At this point – early November - provincial officials should have September done and October should be well on the way.

But nothing at all until the whole thing was complete?  Highly unusual, to say the least.

Your humble e-scribbler turned instead to NRCAN.  An e-mail inquiry to the NRCAN manager of media relations on November 5 for the year to date oil royalty figures produced the response on November 9:  the oil royalty figures for April to August 2009.  September is in the pipeline and even October might be available within a few weeks.

It was that simple and that fast.

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Lower Churchill a long way off

In another Telegram story not available on line Danny Williams admits the Lower Churchill is still a long way from being a reality:

“We’re not looking at a Lower Churchill in the near term. “

He then expressed his hope to have the project approved within two years and started some time after that.

But that’s just his hope, not a prediction of anything.

As Bond Papers readers have known for some time, the project is full of problems, not the least of which is a lack of markets and financing, the two elements crucial to building the multi-billion dollar project.

Again, it’s pretty much old hat since he’s been dampening expectations about the project since at least early 2008.

Many people didn’t quite know what to make of it. Now we know that Williams had been consistently rebuffed for five years in his efforts to get Hydro Quebec to take an ownership stake in the project.

That wasn’t what Williams said publicly at the time but then again, when people don’t know what’s going on they can’t ask uncomfortable questions.

Incidentally, it has been two months now and not a single conventional news media outlet has bothered to follow up on the stunning revelations from natural resources minister Kathy Dunderdale about the secret pitches to Hydro Quebec.

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Governments are afraid of their people after all

Well, afraid of their people getting their hands on information and then daring to ask questions.  Good heavens, imagine the time that would take.

Take for example, this quote from a weekend Telegram news story (Correctional Update:  Yeah it is online.) on Danny Williams and his attitude toward disclosure of public records:

“If things get out and they have to be known, and we can be questioned on it, absolutely but if we had to have an open book on absolutely everything we’re doing, I’ve got to tell you, I’d be out of here.  I’d be gone.”

In the front end of that quote, Williams was expressing his concern about the drag on his time if he had to explain things once documents and other information were released.

This is really old hat by now and it is really old hat to note that Danny Williams was a huge proponent of open records laws before he got elected.  Once he took the oath, he very quickly thought it a bad idea for the public to know what he was up to.

Take for example his very first great foray into freedom from information.  The telegram asked for copies of polling Williams commissioned from one of his favourite pollsters.  Williams refused to disclose them despite the fact the law stated in plain English that polling couldn’t be withheld.   In another instance, the telegram asked for files it knew existed.  Williams admitted there were “purple files”.  The official reply to the request was that they didn’t exist and no documents were disclosed. 

Funny, then to see him quoted in the Telly six years later as saying:  “we go through the process and we vet what we’re entitled to vet by the rules. ”

That purple file one is still lost in the “process”, incidentally, almost two years later.

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Cougar 491 survivor’s statement

Robert Decker survived the crash of Cougar 491 on March 12, 2009. The S-92 ditched in the ocean off St. John’s Newfoundland after aborting a routine resupply run to two of the province’s offshore oil production platforms.

He testified this week at the Wells inquiry into offshore helicopter safety. That’s an important point lost on some reporters and most of the ghouls – political and otherwise – who’ve busily been trying to capitalize on the tragedy for their own purposes. This is an inquiry primarily focussed on offshore safety.

Decker’s testimony was riveting and added considerable new detail to the events on that late winter day. The testimony was, however, tightly controlled, with Decker agreeing only to respond to previously agreed upon questions. The trauma of the event and its effect on him were painfully evident.

There’s an account of it at the Telegram. The full transcript is also available at the helicopter inquiry website.

Decker also read a prepared statement. His closing words should be heeded by all, particularly those who have used this tragedy for their own purposes. The ghouls should take note:

"If we really want to make offshore helicopter travel safe, what we have to do is to make sure that every helicopter does not crash.

"The best way to keep every offshore worker safe is to keep every helicopter in the air where it belongs.

"Safety starts with the helicopter, and I think everything else is secondary."

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Legislature Light

The Bow Wow parliament will be having another short fall. 

The legislature, normally open in the middle of November, won’t be opening until after the Terra Nova by-election.

Supposedly this is to ensure the parties can participate in the by-election.  More likely, it is to let the government avoid the daily heat of question period at such an inopportune moment.  Of course it could also mean that the entire Tory caucus will be living in Glovertown for the month of November.  That worked so well last time.

If the governing Tories lose Terra Nova don’t be surprised if the House doesn’t sit at all until the new year.

The members of the House of Assembly are among the highest paid legislators in the country and sit in the legislature the fewest number of days annually of any federal or provincial house.

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Fire cost NALCOR $18 million in lost revenue

A fire at Churchill Falls last November cost the province’s energy corporation a total of $18 million in lost revenue in late 2008 and early 2009 under the Guaranteed Winter Availability Contract (GWAC) with Hydro-Quebec.

NALCOR Energy released updated information in response to a request from your humble e-scribbler.

The fire occurred November 3, 2008 in a cable shaft at the Churchill Falls generating station and caused what a NALCOR spokesperson described in an e-mail as “extensive damage”.  Damage knocked two of the plant’s 11 turbines out of action and reduced overall generating capacity by a reported 1,000 megawatts.

According to the spokesperson,

This contributed to the decrease in GWAC revenue to Nalcor Energy in 2008 of $8.4 million and year-to-date 2009 of $9.6 million. No penalties [for non-performance] apply under GWAC.

One of the turbine/generation units was back in action by February 2009.  Repairs to the second unit were completed over the summer.

Under the GWAC,  Churchill Falls Labrador Corporation [CFLCo] agrees to supply Hydro-Quebec with a set amount of power during HQ’s high demand winter season apparently in addition to that supplied under the 1969 contract.  The power is used in Quebec. 

GWAC is one of several elements of a 1998 deal that included the recall and resale of a block of 130 megawatts of power and a new shareholders agreement for CFLCo between majority shareholder Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and minority shareholder Hydro-Quebec.  

In the recall component of the deal, NL Hydro recalled a block of power under the 1969 contract and then resold it to Hydro Quebec at new, higher rates.

The recall element of the agreement has now been replaced by a new deal to wheel upwards of 800 megawatts of Churchill Falls power to the United States through Quebec.  Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro pays Hydro Quebec’s transmission corporation $19 million annually in fees for wheeling the power under terms set down by Quebec’s provincial energy regulatory board.

NL Hydro gets  about the same net price for its power under the wheeling deal with Emera and Hydro Quebec as it did selling the power directly to Hydro Quebec. 

Note that some of the links on GWAC are no longer active. They seem to have disappeared in a series of routine redesigns of websites in the provincial government and in the development of the new NALCOR website.

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How far will the make-over go?

The Mighty Mother Corp’s newly minted/re-organized national political news reporting is well worth the time and effort every single day.

There’s even a blog -   Inside Politics – where the reporters in the Ceeb’s parliamentary bureau weigh in on all manner of stuff that local news hounds and political watchers will love.

Like skewering the Liberals for not knowing how many sleeps there are until Santa comes.

Or the federal Conservatives for their new-annoyance with Access to Information (all the while insisting they are the most accountable, open and transparent government in history, shurely)

Or printing transcripts of scrums and interviews or – mercy sakes – doing something called “linking” to other information using that new-fangled Innertubes, or Internet or whatever the heck that infernal contraption is on the desk there.

Undoubtedly, politicians in Ottawa will be soon accusing the Ceeb’s reporters of misrepresenting quotes,  of just cutting up things to suit their evil purposes and moaning about how they will inevitably suffer the wrath of what the parents of 50-somethings still call the blogosphere.

The CBC news make-over is refreshing.  Interesting to see how far it spreads.

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A new era of original ideas

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador spent an untold sum on a consultant to develop a so-called youth retention and attraction strategy.

They created a new ministerial title: “Minister Responsible for Youth Engagement.”

The news release has nine paragraphs and no fewer than four media contacts.

The “strategy”, as described by the consultant, consists of four elements. 

It took 13 focus groups with young people across the province and in Ottawa and Fort MacMurray to come up with these highly innovative concepts designed to keep young people in the province:

1.  Create jobs.

2.  Put services in major centres. Like maybe St. John’s, Gander, Grand Falls-Windsor and Corner Brook?

3.  Link education to the labour market.

4.  Build “an understanding of the benefits of immigration and diversity through public education, community dialogue and strengthened curriculums in the education system.”

 

The “strategy” document describes this as a “fresh, modern approach.”

At least the current administration is getting faster at peddling someone else’s old ideas in new packages. 

In 2007, they unveiled the provincial government’s 2002 waste management strategy.

This took only 18 months.

You could not make this stuff up if you tried.

 

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