and how about Newfoundland??Posted on Yahoo -- anyone know how NFis treated by Ottawa regarding royalties?
Nova Scotia premier pitches Alberta on royalty plan
By Jeffrey Jones
CALGARY, Alberta, Feb 26 (Reuters) - The premier of Nova Scotia, buoyed by a big new offshore natural gas project in his province, headed west to Canada's energy center of Alberta on Monday to press his case for the need for his province to keep more royalties.
Premier John Hamm said the oil industry and Albertans should support his six-week-old campaign to persuade Ottawa to stop clawing back a big portion of federal cash because a strong Nova Scotia economy was in the interest of the energy industry.
One of Canada's poorer provinces, Nova Scotia currently gets 59 percent of its revenues from the federal government. Ottawa reduces those transfers by 70 Canadian cents for every dollar it takes in oil and gas royalties.
Today, the energy industry sees the province as a major new gas supply source, especially for the New England region.
``This is our time for us to be able to develop an economy based not on money from everybody else, but based on those resources that we have every right to expect are ours as Nova Scotians,'' Hamm told energy reporters in Calgary.
He made the comments three days after PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd. (Toronto:PCP.TO - news) kicked off development of its C$1-billion ($650-million) Deep Panuke gas project, which is expected to produce 400 million cubic feet of gas a day by 2005.
PanCanadian's project, located in the Atlantic Ocean, 250 km (155 miles) southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, is the second major development in the region after the Sable Offshore Energy Project, which is currently shipping 500 million cubic feet a day of gas to the energy-hungry U.S. Northeast.
Nova Scotia has quickly become one of the energy industry's exploration hotspots, based on its proximity to the huge U.S. market and reserve potential that provincial officials estimate in the neighborhood of a hefty 40 trillion cubic feet.
Numerous energy industry heavyweights, including Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE:XOM - news), Shell Canada Ltd. (Toronto:SHC.TO - news), Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:APC - news), Kerr-McGee Corp. (NYSE:KMG - news) and Marathon Oil Inc. With production forecast at 1 billion cubic feet a day, nearly half of New England's gas needs could be supplied by the region within five years, they said.
``The industry wants us to succeed. I mean, we have an energy crisis in North America,'' he said. ``What was the No. 1 item on the agenda when the prime minister met with the president of the U.S.? Energy. Where is the solution? Canada. Where is part of the solution in Canada? The east coast.''
Hamm was in Ottawa this month to hammer home his ``Campaign for Fairness'' message to Prime Minister Jean Chretien and other cabinet ministers that a strong provincial economy -- helped by being able to hang onto more energy royalties and corporate taxes -- would convince the energy industry that Nova Scotia was a top place to operate.
But Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin, speaking in Halifax on Monday, said the clawback was in place for all Atlantic provinces and any change would require agreement by each jurisdiction and the federal government. He also said getting agreement would not be easy.
``If you discriminate between one kind of natural resource and another kind of natural resource then in fact what you're saying is that some provinces will be treated better than other provinces receiving equalization,'' Martin said. ``Those other provinces have made it very clear to us that they don't think that would be fair.''