Low-Carbon Fuel Rules in US Spurs Oil Sands PR Blitz

The government of Alberta, Canada and oil industry influence groups are investing in a PR campaign to counter the perception that oil sands mining is environmentally disastrous and worsens global warming pollution.

Much of their effort is being spurred by the prospect of cleaner-fuel mandates across the United States, environmental groups say, which would shift incentives to low-carbon fuels.

"I think that the oil industry is concerned," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of international programs at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

And they may well have reason to be troubled, observers note, as California moves forward in implementing the nation's first low-carbon fuel standard, or LCFS, with other states expected to follow suit.

The policy would require refineries, producers and importers of motor fuels to cut the "carbon intensity" of their fuel pool. Oil derived from tar sands is a dirtier fuel source than conventional oil, although just how much dirtier is a matter of contention.

Adding to the pressure on Alberta, a proposed project to pipe nearly a million gallons of the unconventional crude per day to Texas refineries, called Keystone XL, is facing unprecedented attention and opposition.

It prompted Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach to buy a half-page ad for $58,000 in the Washington Post last month, after an op-ed he submitted in defense of oil sands and the pipeline project was rejected by the paper.

"A good neighbour lends you a cup of sugar. A great neighbour supplies you with 1.4 million barrels of oil per day," the ad said.

The Stelmach ad has been followed by a wider $268,000 campaign launched earlier this month called, "Alberta. Tell it like it is." It is designed to combat the oil sands' negative image within the province.

The campaign website declares that "emissions from oil sands [is] comparable to other crude oils." A spokesperson for Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach told the local Fort McMurray Today that per-barrel emissions have dropped "substantially," by about 40 percent.

Industry in Lockstep

The ad blitz comes on the heels of a contrarian report released last month by the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, a Washington, D.C.–based trade group, which said a national LCFS would actually increase global greenhouse gas output by up to 19 million metric tons each year.

Written by Minneapolis-based Barr Engineering Co., the report predicted that the policy would trigger a "crude shuffle" in which Middle Eastern oil would end up replacing Canadian imports to the United States. The displaced oil sands, the report said, would end up being shipped to China in tankers, increasing transport emissions.

Many U.S. observers scoffed at the idea.

Michael Levi, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and prominent voice on energy issues, called it "a distorted and misleading piece of work," in a recent blog post.