Co-chairs of the program
Robert J. Mason
Managing Director, Head of Oil Sands, Investment Banking
TD Securities Inc.
David M. Wadsworth
Americas Director
Chevron Lummus Global
GALA DINNER:
Book your Table now!
Invite your clients and colleagues to attend this premier networking event in the evening on February 10th, 2015! You and your clients will have the opportunity to gain insights from our
Distinguished Dinner Speaker:
David Negrin
President
Aquilini Development and Construction Inc.
The presentation will focus on the Aquilini Investment Group’s Plan to Build an Oil Pipeline to Canada’s West Coast
Reserve your table NOW to avoid disappointment. Gain additional market exposure by having your company listed as one of the dinner table sponsors on the agenda!
Please contact Amy Leung at 416-642-6128 or aleung@alm.com to book your table or conference sponsorship packages now!
With ongoing supply disruption risk due to a range of issues in the Ukraine, the Middle East and portions of Africa, Canada’s oil sands continue to be recognized as a strategic and secure source of future oil production growth globally. Alberta’s oil sands deposits are estimated to contain 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen in place (170 billion barrels recoverable using current technology) and are ranked amongst the three largest petroleum reserves in the world. Production from oil sands now comprises over 60% of total production from Western Canada, and is expected to make up to approximately 70% by 2020.
While the opportunity is huge, there are considerable challenges facing the industry today.
The recent sharp selloff in International crude prices such as Brent and WTI is reducing the profitability in an already challenged industry.
The combination of reduced consumption and an explosion of production growth in recent years from the development of new tight oil reservoirs in the U.S. has fundamentally changed the supply and demand balance in Canada’s only significant existing export market. Given the lack of infrastructure to deliver large volumes to tidewater, Canadian producers have been selling their products at significant discounts to international prices since early 2011 – costing industry, Governments, and ultimately taxpayers, tens of billions of dollars annually. After a period of significant foreign acquisitions within the sector by international majors, the combination of a limited ability to sell production at global prices and the new framework which prevents the acquisition of control of oil sands assets by State Owned Enterprises (“SOE’s”) has resulted in very little activity for the past two years. Continuing cost pressures in the industry coupled with broad shareholder demands for higher returns and return of capital have combined to slow the pace of investment in new projects, especially by international majors with multiple alternatives globally. The ability by junior developers to finance themselves has also been significantly curtailed, resulting in a number of new projects being put on hold.
What are the prospects for the sector’s ability to increase exports to tidewater, whether it be the U.S. Gulf Coast or Canada’s West or East Coasts, and the impact to Canada if we are not able to diversify our markets?
How successful has industry’s widespread movement to establish significant rail export capacity been in 2014?
What impact has the Federal Government’s framework for acquisitions by SOEs had on the cost of capital for industry and levels of development going forward? What is the current economic and financing climate for developing new projects? What are the latest strategies being employed to address the industry’s history of inflationary cost pressures, especially in this recent low oil price environment? What are the latest emerging technologies and companies in the sector? How will future development be impacted by ongoing environmental group opposition and future CO2 emissions regulations both within Canada and in the U.S.?
These and many more other questions will be addressed during the conference. You will be able to express your own points of view, address your questions to the speakers either in each session or informally during breaks and network with your colleagues in industry and Government.
Conference Highlights:
- Building a strategic and secure source of future oil production growth globally
- The integrated North American crude oil market
- Managing risks, unlocking value
- Exploitable current and future formations
- The cumulative impact of hosting oil sands projects – cooperation and partnership
- Taking stock of where Aboriginal business is today
- Retaining the social license from local stakeholders
- Current economic and financing environment in the Oil Sands
- Challenges facing market access – the myths and the facts
- Opportunities to reduce green-house gas (GHG) emissions
- Leveraging global talent to accelerate innovation
- New technology landscape
- Shifting policy and politics in the US and how it affects Canadian energy
- Canadian oversight – has anything changed?
