Vancouver-based Teck Resources Ltd., has withdrawn its application to build a massive oilsands project in northern Alberta, citing the ongoing debate over climate policy in Canada.
The federal government was slated to make a decision this week on whether to approve the $20.6-billion, 260,000-barrel-per-day Frontier.
Sources close to the project confirmed to CBC News the application was withdrawn.
The company said it will take a $1.13-billion writedown on the project, which it said would have created 7,000 construction jobs, 2,500 operating jobs, and brought in more than $70 billion in government revenue.
“We are disappointed to have arrived at this point,” CEO and president Don Lindsay wrote in a letter addressed to federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, posted to the company’s website Sunday evening.
“Teck put forward a socially and environmentally responsible project that was industry leading and had the potential to create significant economic benefits for Canadians.”
Lindsay wrote that customers want policies that reconcile resource development and climate change — something he said the region has yet to achieve, but he did not clarify if the region he was referring to was Alberta or Canada.
“Unfortunately, the growing debate around this issue has placed Frontier and our company squarely at the nexus of much broader issues that need to be resolved. In that context, it is now evident that there is no constructive path forward for the project,” he wrote.
Cabinet was to decide this week
But he said he wanted to make it clear the company isn’t shying away from controversy.
“The nature of our business dictates that a vocal minority will almost inevitably oppose specific developments. We are prepared to face that sort of opposition,” he wrote.
“Frontier, however, has surfaced a broader debate over climate change and Canada’s role in addressing it. It is our hope that withdrawing from the process will allow Canadians to shift to a larger and more positive discussion about the path forward.”
Following Teck’s announcement, Wilkinson and Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan confirmed in a statement that cabinet will no longer be making a decision on the project.
“As Teck has rightly pointed out, and as many in the industry know, global investors and consumers are increasingly looking for the cleanest products available and sustainable resource development,” the statement read.
Fourteen First Nations and Metis communities signed participation agreements with the company on the mine, and the project was awaiting approval from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government, which had been expected by the end of the month.
Cabinet was expected to discuss the project at its meeting on Tuesday. It had until the end of the week to make a decision, though it could have decided to push that deadline back.
Wilkinson has been signalling for weeks that cabinet’s discussion would include the fact that Alberta has not set specific greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets, and in recent days specifically asked the Alberta government to enforce its cap on emissions from the oilsands.
Teck’s Frontier oilsands project was planned for northern Alberta. The company pulled its application for the project on Sunday. (Teck Resources)
Ottawa ‘let us down,’ says Kenney
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney described Teck’s announcement as a grave disappointment for Albertans, but said it didn’t come as a surprise.
“It is what happens when governments lack the courage to defend the interests of Canadians in the face of a militant minority,” Kenney said in an emailed statement, pointing to what he described as weeks of federal indecision on blockades in solidarity with those opposed a natural gas pipeline proposed by Coastal GasLink in northern B.C.
The premier wrote that the province agreed to federal requests and conditions for approving the project.
“The factors that led to the today’s decision further weaken national unity.… We did our part, but the federal government’s inability to convey a clear or unified position let us, and Teck, down,” Kenney said.
Pressure still on Liberals, says political scientist
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office said Trudeau spoke with Kenney Sunday evening to discuss Teck’s decision, and the ongoing railway blockades.
“The Prime Minister reaffirmed the Government of Canada’s commitment to working with Alberta and the resource sector to keep creating good jobs and to ensure clean, sustainable growth for Canadians,” the statement said.
Duane Bratt, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said Teck’s decision to pull the application won’t relieve pressure on the Liberal government from critics.
He said even though Teck’s letter did not lay blame on the prime minister, he anticipates it will be interpreted that way by his political opponents as part of the “anti-Trudeau … anti-Liberal discussion.”
“This will just be rolled in as part of that narrative,” Bratt said.
Sunday’s announcement came just hours after the Alberta government announced it had struck deals with two First Nations over the proposed project, which would have been located 110 kilometres north of Fort McMurray.
The province said the agreements with the Mikisew Cree and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nations addressed bison and caribou habitats and protected Wood Buffalo National Park.
Ron Quintal, president of the Fort McKay Métis, one of 14 First Nations and Métis communities in favour of the project, said the withdrawal is a “black eye” for Canada.
But Bill Loutitt, CEO of McMurray Métis, said while his community supported the application, the decision to withdraw was the correct one.
“We know Teck as a progressive company and supporter of the Indigenous communities in Wood Buffalo, but tonight’s statement clearly shows that Teck acted in the best interests of Canadians, as they always have,” he said.
Project’s economic viability questioned
In July 2019, a joint federal-provincial review panel recommended the mine be approved, saying the economic benefits outweighed what it described as significant adverse environmental impacts.
However, a January report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis made the case that Teck’s application showed a “reckless disregard for the facts regarding oil prices in Canada.”
The joint-review panel relied on a long-term oil price projection of more than $95 US per barrel provided by Teck, the IEEFA wrote, about $40 US higher than current prices and around $20 US higher than other forecasts.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney said the province had agreed to federal requests and conditions for approving the project. (Mike Symington/CBC)
On Friday, Teck released disappointing fourth quarter results, saying global economic uncertainty negatively impacted commodity prices.
The project was also expected to produce about four million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year over its 40 year lifespan, and disturb 292 square kilometres of pristine wetlands and boreal forest — although that whole area wouldn’t be mined at once.
Greenpeace applauds decision
“The promise of Canada’s potential will not be realized until governments can reach agreement around how climate policy considerations will be addressed in the context of future responsible energy sector development,” Lindsay wrote. “Without clarity on this critical question, the situation that has faced Frontier will be faced by future projects and it will be very difficult to attract future investment, either domestic or foreign.”
Energy consultant Greg Stringham, who has worked for the industry, government and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said tight economics and increasing risks put Teck at the centre of debate around energy projects.
“And they’re going, well … do they want to be the straw that breaks the policy camel’s back?” he said in an interview.
Keith Stewart, senior energy analyst with Greenpeace Canada, said he was surprised by Teck’s decision to withdraw the project, but believes it is the right one.
“This project never made economic sense; it didn’t make climate sense; it wasn’t really going to happen,” Stewart told CBC News.
“This was a project that might have made sense 10 years ago. It certainly doesn’t today,” he said.
Read Teck’s letter to the environment minister below:
NEW YORK (AP) — Teen smoking hit an all-time low in the U.S. this year, part of a big drop in the youth use of tobacco overall, the government reported Thursday.
There was a 20% drop in the estimated number of middle and high school students who recently used at least one tobacco product, including cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and hookahs. The number went from 2.8 million last year to 2.25 million this year — the lowest since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key survey began in 1999.
“Reaching a 25-year low for youth tobacco product use is an extraordinary milestone for public health,” said Deirdre Lawrence Kittner, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, in a statement. However, “our mission is far from complete.”
A previously reported drop in vaping largely explains the overall decline in tobacco use from 10% to about 8% of students, health officials said.
The youth e-cigarette rate fell to under 6% this year, down from 7.7% last year — the lowest at any point in the last decade. E-cigarettes are the most commonly used tobacco products among teens, followed by nicotine pouches.
Use of other products has been dropping, too.
Twenty-five years ago, nearly 30% of high school students smoked. This year, it was just 1.7%, down from the 1.9%. That one-year decline is so small it is not considered statistically significant, but marks the lowest since the survey began 25 years ago. The middle school rate also is at its lowest mark.
Recent use of hookahs also dropped, from 1.1% to 0.7%.
The results come from an annual CDC survey, which included nearly 30,000 middle and high school students at 283 schools. The response rate this year was about 33%.
Officials attribute the declines to a number of measures, ranging from price increases and public health education campaigns to age restrictions and more aggressive enforcement against retailers and manufacturers selling products to kids.
Among high school students, use of any tobacco product dropped to 10%, from nearly 13% and e-cigarette use dipped under 8%, from 10%. But there was no change reported for middle school students, who less commonly vape or smoke or use other products,
Current use of tobacco fell among girls and Hispanic students, but rose among American Indian or Alaska Native students. And current use of nicotine pouches increased among white kids.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — An Alabama man was arrested Thursday for his alleged role in the January hack of a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission social media account that led the price of bitcoin to spike, the Justice Department said.
Eric Council Jr., 25, of Athens, is accused of helping to break into the SEC’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, allowing the hackers to prematurely announce the approval of long-awaited bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
The price of bitcoin briefly spiked more than $1,000 after the post claimed “The SEC grants approval for #Bitcoin ETFs for listing on all registered national securities exchanges.”
But soon after the initial post appeared, SEC Chairman Gary Gensler said on his personal account that the SEC’s account was compromised. “The SEC has not approved the listing and trading of spot bitcoin exchange-traded products,” Gensler wrote, calling the post unauthorized without providing further explanation.
Authorities say Council carried out what’s known as a “SIM swap,” using a fake ID to impersonate someone with access to the SEC’s X account and convince a cellphone store to give him a SIM card linked to the person’s phone. Council was able to take over the person’s cellphone number and get access codes to the SEC’s X account, which he shared with others who broke into the account and sent the post, the Justice Department says.
Prosecutors say after Council returned the iPhone he used for the SIM swap, his online searches included: “What are the signs that you are under investigation by law enforcement or the FBI even if you have not been contacted by them.”
An email seeking comment was sent Thursday to an attorney for Council, who is charged in Washington’s federal court with conspiracy to commit aggravated identity theft and access device fraud.
The price of bitcoin swung from about $46,730 to just below $48,000 after the unauthorized post hit on Jan. 9 and then dropped to around $45,200 after the SEC’s denial. The SEC officially approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin the following day.
Google, Meta and TikTok have removed social media accounts belonging to an industrial plant in Russia’s Tatarstan region aimed at recruiting young foreign women to make drones for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Posts on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were taken down following an investigation by The Associated Press published Oct. 10 that detailed working conditions in the drone factory in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, which is under U.S. and British sanctions.
Videos and other posts on the social media platforms promised the young women, who are largely from Africa, a free plane ticket to Russia and a salary of more than $500 a month following their recruitment via the program called “Alabuga Start.”
But instead of a work-study program in areas like hospitality and catering, some of them said they learned only arriving in the Tatarstan region that they would be toiling in a factory to make weapons of war, assembling thousands of Iranian-designed attack drones to be launched into Ukraine.
In interviews with AP, some of the women who worked in the complex complained of long hours under constant surveillance, of broken promises about wages and areas of study, and of working with caustic chemicals that left their skin pockmarked and itching. AP did not identify them by name or nationality out of concern for their safety.
The tech companies also removed accounts for Alabuga Polytechnic, a vocational boarding school for Russians aged 16-18 and Central Asians aged 18-22 that bills its graduates as experts in drone production.
The accounts collectively had at least 158,344 followers while one page on TikTok had more than a million likes.
In a statement, YouTube said its parent company Google is committed to sanctions and trade compliance and “after review and consistent with our policies, we terminated channels associated with Alabuga Special Economic Zone.”
Meta said it removed accounts on Facebook and Instagram that “violate our policies.” The company said it was committed to complying with sanctions laws and said it recognized that human exploitation is a serious problem which required a multifaceted approach, including at Meta.
It said it had teams dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts and aimed to remove those seeking to abuse its platforms.
TikTok said it removed videos and accounts which violated its community guidelines, which state it does not allow content that is used for the recruitment of victims, coordination of their transport, and their exploitation using force, fraud, coercion, or deception.
The women aged 18-22 were recruited to fill an urgent labor shortage in wartime Russia. They are from places like Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, South Sudan, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, as well as the South Asian country of Sri Lanka. The drive also is expanding to elsewhere in Asia as well as Latin America.
Accounts affiliated to Alabuga with tens of thousands of followers are still accessible on Telegram, which did not reply to a request for comment. The plant’s management also did not respond to AP.
The Alabuga Start recruiting drive used a robust social media campaign of slickly edited videos with upbeat music that show African women smiling while cleaning floors, wearing hard hats while directing cranes, and donning protective equipment to apply paint or chemicals.
Videos also showed them enjoying Tatarstan’s cultural sites or playing sports. None of the videos made it clear the women would be working in a drone manufacturing complex.
Online, Alabuga promoted visits to the industrial area by foreign dignitaries, including some from Brazil, Sri Lanka and Burkina Faso.
In a since-deleted Instagram post, a Turkish diplomat who visited the plant had compared Alabuga Polytechnic to colleges in Turkey and pronounced it “much more developed and high-tech.”
According to Russian investigative outlets Protokol and Razvorot, some pupils at Alabuga Polytechnic are as young as 15 and have complained of poor working conditions.
Videos previously on the platforms showed the vocational school students in team-building exercises such as “military-patriotic” paintball matches and recreating historic Soviet battles while wearing camouflage.
Last month, Alabuga Start said on Telegram its “audience has grown significantly!”
That could be due to its hiring of influencers, who promoted the site on TikTok and Instagram as an easy way for young women to make money after leaving school.
TikTok removed two videos promoting Alabuga after publication of the AP investigation.
Experts told AP that about 90% of the women recruited via the Alabuga Start program work in drone manufacturing.
