The fix is in

As of September 22, the presidential search committee at Memorial University had 40 names to review and two whole stages of sifting left before they came up with a name.

The time line in September 2009 was that the “committee and consultants plan to continue efforts in the coming months with a view to concluding a successful search by early 2010.”

Well, something shifted, big time.

According to CBC, there is an announcement scheduled for noon on Wednesday.

All things considered the sudden conclusion of the whole exercise is rather odd.

Sounds very much like a convenient fit turned up out of the blue. 

Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time that organized, professional searches were interrupted by outside interference from a political source in the current administration.

Maybe Andy Wells is getting tired of the PUB.

Unconspiratorial Update:  There’s an excellent chance this thing was done professionally and the choice will be very good, unlike the political mess the last time. 

How can you tell?  Lips are zipped all over town.  When it’s political, everyone knows what’s up.

Meanwhile, some eagle-eyed observer noted all the government appointees to the board of regents whose term expired in October or whose term will expire this December.

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Danny Williams and the Philosopher’s Stone: Control and Resources

“Securing equity means having greater leverage to control our own destiny.”

“The principle of making our own way and taking control of our resources is the right one.”

Two quotes from the Speech from the Throne,

House of Assembly, March 2008

_______________________________________________________________

Control is a key principle in Danny William’s political philosophy.

Control of the province’s natural resources is a core point in most of his administration’s public statements on oil, natural gas and electricity.

The word occurs twice in his recent letter to Shawn Graham about the proposal to sell NB Power to Hydro Quebec. There’s the reference to “New Brunswickers who no longer control their energy destiny.” Then there’s the contrast: “ But we took control of our own destiny and Nalcor Energy is now a crown jewel in our province’s energy assets.”

Williams also raised the concern about control of transmission routes supposedly resting in the hands of Hydro Quebec and of the control of rates resulting from the sale of NB Power.

Energy and control go together, as Williams made clear when he announced in 2006 that the provincial government would “go-it-alone” on the Lower Churchill. he made the following comments in the House of Assembly on May 8, 2006:

“...but the big message here is that we are masters of our own destiny, that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians are in control of this project for the benefit of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians."

- "By taking the lead we are in full control of the project, unlike the circumstance with the last government; that project, basically, was going to be controlled by Quebec. It would have been marketed, it would have been financed, the transmission would have been done by Quebec. The control of the project, the project management, would have been done by Quebec. As well, if there had been an overrun on the project, the last Lower Churchill project that was proposed by the Grimes government, in fact, we could have lost the project; because, if there had been an overrun, we would not have been in a position to be able to finance it….”

But control is not just a principle behind energy initiatives. Being “masters of our own destiny” is the same idea in other words and it crops up repeatedly in Danny Williams’ speeches and comments as an idea central to government policy.

Control is a principle of the administration’s policy. It is a guiding rule, an essential quality, or the basis for action.

Control in the Energy Plan

The relationship between resource control and equity is established clearly in the Conservative party’s 2003 election platform.

The section on resource development puts it this way:

The power to control development of offshore oil and gas is of little value unless the Province has the know-how to deal with technical issues and field assessments equivalent to the expertise of the major oil companies, and sufficient ownership in production licences to influence development decisions.

• A Progressive Conservative government will either restructure Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro as an energy company, or create a new Energy corporation, with a mandate to retain equity in the Province's oil and gas resources. This will be done on a go-forward basis.

The relationship is mapped out more plainly in the 2007 energy plan released in time for the 2007 election campaign. So important is control that it is the second principle guiding the plan, after sustainability:

Our Principles

1. Sustainability

…

2. Control

We will exercise appropriate control over the development of our resources to ensure they are managed and used in the best interest of the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. We will assume an ownership interest in the development of our energy resources where it fits our strategic long-term objectives.

The idea is repeated again in what, by now, is a familiar formulation in a discussion of energy resource management (p.13):

We will take more control than in the past over the development of these resources and the benefits they generate.

Having identified the importance of control and the connection to management, management, the plan then re-affirms that equity stakes in energy projects are the first lever used “to ensure sound and effective management and to maximize benefits over the long term.” (p.18)

Control and equity stakes are thus intimately connected in the Conservative philosophy.

The 2003 campaign platform identified the key role to be played by a new energy corporation in holding the equity stakes and thereby serving as the means by which the provincial government would exercise the sought-after control of energy resources.

As well, the energy corporation has other key control responsibilities set out in the energy plan:

- “If the Provincial Government [sic] lifts the moratorium [on small hydro projects], it will institute a policy that the Energy Corporation will control and coordinate the development of small hydro projects that meet economic thresholds and are viable for an isolated island system.”

- “One of our goals is to maximize our benefits from resource developments. We believe this means the Energy Corporation should control the development of all small hydro developments for the benefit of all electricity users and determine whether to do this alone or with private sector partners.”

- “To maximize these benefits [from wind power], the Provincial Government believes the Energy Corporation should control the development of all wind projects and determine when to develop alone or with private sector partners.”

- “Due to the strategic importance of generation and transmission to the future of Newfoundland and Labrador, the province, through NLH [Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro], will retain ownership and control of its existing transmission and generation assets”

To anyone familiar with the Williams administration, none of this will be new. in fact, it will be so familiar that one might wonder the point of such an extensive recitation of the relationship between the principle of control and the idea of equity stakes in Danny Williams’ philosophy.

That will become clear in the second instalment of this series.

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AIMS confirms the population trends

The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies today released its updated 1998 demographic study for the Atlantic provinces. 

Not surprisingly they confirmed the demographics trends for this province over the next three decades that have been known publicly since the early to mid-1990s in this province.

"While slower growth and aging affect the labour force, and hence a region's ability to generate output and income, they also affect virtually all other aspects of the economy. They affect patterns of saving and household consumption, and hence investment. They have differential effects on sales, production, and investment levels in different industries, and their impact thus falls unevenly on different areas within a region. They affect the tax bases from which provincial governments must draw revenue, and they affect the demands for government program expenditures. Work carried out in other contexts suggests the feasibility and importance of anticipating the effects of population change on government expenditures."

Those trends and the financial implications for government are nothing knew for regular Bond Papers readers.

This sort of information is one of the reasons why this corner of the Intern long ago branded government spending as unsound and unsustainable.

It just took them three years to figure it out.

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Lower Churchill definitely a long way off

Danny Williams and his little band might be off to New York to push the Lower Churchill but those savvy people in the Big Apple will know the project is increasingly nothing more than a cute little video with Ron Hynes’ voiceover.

The aboriginal land claims agreement said last year to be finalised and set for a ratification vote in January is still mired in the negotiation and ratification process.

Canadian Press is reporting that Innu deputy grand chief Peter Penashue said:

"Government and the aboriginal people have signed off ... and that will ultimately go for ratification in the very near future."

But Penashue said it could be three or four years before the agreement winds its way through federal channels and is ultimately approved and voted on by his people.

Three or four years before it gets to a vote.

That’s a long way from this fall, which was Penashue’s prediction in June 2009.

Danny Williams was right when he told the Telegram editorial board recently that the project would not happen in the near term.

One of the reasons for the delay in finishing the land claims agreement is that only two of the three parties necessary for a finished product were involved.   Despite the provincial government’s  decades of experience with land claims agreements, including lengthy negotiations on the Innu claim, these talks ignored the federal government entirely. 

"At one point we were looking at splitting the agreement" into provincial and federal areas of jurisdiction, he said.

…

"Subsequently, it has been agreed to by lawyers that (provincial issues) can't be separate from the feds because the feds have the constitutional powers and authority to finalize these agreements," Penashue said.

There’s no explanation why the provincial government and the Innu embarked on the bilateral talks knowing that legally there was no way to cut Ottawa out.  What legal genius thought otherwise?

This is further proof that the problems and delays in the Lower have nothing to do with the politically driven fiction coming from the Premier’s Office  - and faithfully repeated by some others - that the whole Lower Churchill project is buggered up because of Hydro Quebec.  

There’s a reason why your humble e-scribbler labelled the New Dawn announcement the Matshishkapeu Accord.  The whole thing is a pile of wind, from some of its initial details to the  sheer nonsense that the whole thing was done.

The Premier heralded the thing last fall as doing everything except curing scoliosis. The deal was not just an important step toward the Lower Churchill, it was an “extremely important” one and before the already breathless sentence ran out of breath let’s add that it was also a “significant” step too.  Like an important step  - let alone an extremely important step  - wouldn’t also be significant unless that was added to the sentence as well.

Anyway, the overblown language turns out to have been a very good indicator that the deal was not so much of a deal after all.  Remember the Rule of Opposites?

After it was announced, the Matshishkapeu Accord  quietly slipped away into MIA Land.  The ratification vote was cancelled amid rumblings of major problems with the deal that needed reworking. 

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The first forecast for negative economic growth in 2010

According to the Conference Board of Canada’s latest economic projections for the provinces,  province’s that are down this year are going up next year.

All except one.

Newfoundland and Labrador’s economy is forecast to shrink 3.6% this year but the Board has now said that the local economy will also contract another half percent in 2010.  The Board doesn’t anticipate a return to growth in Newfoundland and Labrador until 2011.

It put Newfoundland and Labrador in a category of its own. That province is expected to post the biggest GDP decline this year at 3.6% and is the only provincial economy forecast by the Conference Board to contract (by 0.5%) in 2010. The board said the province was hurt by declines in forestry, mining and manufacturing this year, and offshore oil drilling is expected to remain at depressed levels next year.

Incidentally, VOCM missed the importance of that entirely.

The forecast contraction for Newfoundland and Labrador this year is the largest in the country for 2009, incidentally.

Now all of that make as a complete mockery of the line coming from local politicians.  After the collapse last year, the Premier talked about the province being protected by an economic bubble last year.  That turned out to be a version of the St. John’s Harbour bubble apparently.

And just within the past couple of weeks, environment minister Charlene Johnson was out telling a local Rotary Club audience about how the province was well positioned to weather the economic storm due to the wonderful things done by the crowd she’s a part of.

Well that’s another issue.

There’s no question however, the economic bubble was entirely fictitious.

The Conference Board projection is in line with the actual oil revenue data for the first half of 2009 that Bond Papers brought you exclusively earlier this week. it shows royalties are down 57% for the same period in 2008 and that they are 15% below the government’s own forecast thus far.

Oil production is also down.  In the first six months of fiscal 2009, production is  running about 29% below the same period in 2008.

Add to that personal income tax. Last year, personal income tax (PIT) generated $899,460, 000 in government revenue.  That works out to $4, 037 for each of the 220, 300 people working in the province, full-time and part-time.  You can find those figures using information in the provincial government’s own financial documents tabled with the budget last spring.

Government lowballed the number for its 2009 budget, projecting PIT at $786 million.  That’s despite expected growth in income  - yes, they forecast more income going around - and a decline in employment of only 2,000.  That $786 million is about $100 million below what the government’s own numbers would work out to be, incidentally.  That’s why the ones actually published in the Estimates are said to be low-balled.

Job losses are currently running higher than forecast.  In October it was 5,400 for the same month in 2008.  Now word publicly on wages but working with the provincial government’s figures and the actual performance you would bring personal income tax in at around $870 million.  (4037 X 215,000)  Now that’s a rough estimate.

Even if PIT went to the same number as last year by some quirk, it still wouldn’t offset the forecast decline in oil revenues and the drop that came in mining and the forestry sector.

The government is on track to get the budget they forecast.  There won’t be any surprises, like discovering that despite all the posturing and puffing about being a have province, the government actually opted to switch formulas and collect Equalization in 2008.  They did that, incidentally, five months after Danny Williams made his great “have province” speech at the November Tory fundraiser. It was a spectacular poll goose but it was also a fraud since the provincial government knew the numbers and cabinet knew that it would not make its Equalization election until the following March.  There is more to being a have province than a political speech, a poll goose and a rip-off video.

But that, too is another issue.

There are serious issues to be faced in the months ahead.  The people of Newfoundland and Labrador are only just now starting to see the signs.

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What Hydro Quebec gets in the Maritimes

Quebec Premier Jean Charest revealed today that Hydro Quebec has started negotiations to take over electricity delivery on Prince Edward island.

He made the announcement at a major energy conference in Boston that brought together every major actor in the energy business on the north-eastern part of the continent. 

Hot on the heels of news about Hydro Quebec’s deal to buy NB Power, this is hardly surprising. 

Hydro Quebec has seen its revenues from electricity exports shrink by about 30% over last year.  There’s little chance of that rebounding in the near term as the Untied States gropes its way out of a recession.

There’s hardly a better place for Hydro Quebec to go hunting for new customers than New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.  In both places, electricity rates are in no danger of dropping.  Hydro Quebec has a pile of power and no place to sell it. they’ve also got the cash ready to go.

Sounds like a match made in heaven.

Hydro Quebec has deep enough pockets to buy up the financial mess known as NB Power, deliver electricity rate relief to New Brunswick consumers and make good money when a hunk of Quebec electricity would normally be making a better return somewhere else.

Watch for the same sort of deal in Prince Edward Island.

It works for everyone.  What’s been missing in all the second rate commentary, hype and pure political bullshit flowing in Atlantic Canada these past few weeks is that Hydro Quebec is cutting a straight up business deal in the Maritimes.  They are in business to make money and make money they will.

When the American markets rebound Hydro Quebec will be ready with its existing generating capability, the 8,500 megawatts in development through wind and hydro in Quebec, Point LePreau,  and the hydro in New Brunswick and the wind generation that has been and will be developed in both PEI and New Brunswick.

All of that is considerably closer to American markets than the Lower Churchill.  It will be shipped over existing infrastructure.  Any new power lines that are needed will be shorter and considerably less costly to develop than either new lines through Quebec from Labrador.  let’s not even talk about the so-called Anglo-Saxon route.  It was ludicrously expensive in 1965 and it remains so the better part of a half century later.

There’s no surprise, in all this, that the Newfoundland and Labrador energy corporation and Premier Danny Williams decided to stay away from a meeting of anybody who is anybody in energy in New England and Eastern Canada.

Not only would there be the embarrassment of being in the room for Charest’s announcement, they’d also have to spend two days with a bunch of people who know the real score on the Lower Churchill.  These people just don’t have the time or the inclination to have smoke blown up their backsides.  They’ve got better things to do.

No surprise either that the same day the big news breaks in Boston, the provincial government here announced a one day junket to New York to talk about an imaginary future energy project  and other what-ifs with an unknown group of people.  They’ll turn out for the free nosh, if nothing else, and back home the locals can just cover this as if it was news.

Hydro Quebec went to the Maritimes and it’s been picking up assets, customers and future earning potential on both sides of the border along the way.

Danny, Kathy and Ed are going to New York for a few hours.

Bet they won’t come back with much more than a few souvenir pictures of Danny, Ed, Kathy and Liz standing in front of the Ed Sullivan Theatre.

It’s right around the corner from the Hilton on Avenue of the Americas.

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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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