Another Resource Sell Off

Wednesday, August 03, 2005 04:00 AM

Do you think that Kinder Morgan, the company that has just paid a 20% premium to get control of Terasen Gas, will feel any obligation to see that the province that furnishes it with the natural gas it sells to its 1.1 million customers gets a better price than say the people in the southern US?

Dream on.

If the company needs more money (and it will to pay for that 20% premium along with the 6.9 billion dollars it paid for what used to be BC Gas) it will appear before the BC Utilities Commission and make the case that it needs more money to cover costs.

That decision will be rubber stamped, and the residents of B.C. will be paying the same, or perhaps more, for the gas that comes out of our ground than people south of the 49th.

There is something drastically wrong with that picture.

The gas is supposedly owned by the people of BC, a Crown resource. But here is the full scenario.

The companies that drill for the product are US, the pipe lines that send the product along are owned by the US, so where in the world does that put the British Columbia customer?

When Bill 85 was passed in 2003, it allowed the foreign companies to own more than 10% of the company.

It didn’t take long for Texas based Kinder Morgan to sniff out the potential of owning the product from the ground to the home. Afterall, Kinder Morgan has 9,000 employees, and Terasen Gas has 400 in this province.

So wHere do we sit ? Well the price of your natural gas (that I always thought we owned) will now go up to pay for the company along with a handsome profit for the US interests .

In the past five years we have steadily watched the outflow of our BC companies to US interests , BC Rail , Accenture, Duke Energy just to name a few .

Gradually we seem bent on selling off this province.

I wonder what the line will be, "A U.S. Company can run Terasen better than we can."?

That, is one man's opinion.
Previous Story - Next Story

Email |

Print |

Facebook |

Twitter |

Digg |

Del.icio.us

Posted on Wednesday, August 03, 2005 04:00 AM in Views by Ben Meisner

Return to Home

Comments

Posted by: rock on August 3 2005 7:48 AM

This looks like a cause that one of our soon to be unemployed city councillor's should take up.Save BC gas....you could get some major dogooder points for this one bud.
ROCK keapin it real 24/7

Posted by: Chadermando on August 3 2005 2:53 PM

The liberal fix is in. Kinder Morgan just has to say this is our weighted average cost of capital historically, and thus this is the return that we require. The rest is simple accounting to fix the price to what Americans are willing to pay to run their blender in the long winters of New Mexico or Arizona.

IMO using natural gas to heat your home is already 50% more expensive than electric base board heaters. I've found this in my home for the last 3-4 years. I can no longer aford the $300 gas bills in the winter. I would much rather just pay my $100 electric bill and not worry about the gas bill shock.

Next our occupied Victoria politicians will turn around and sell BC Hydro generating capacity, or turn to the market rates of Kemano exports to the US under NAFTA chapter 11 and then we will be screwed with no relief.

The liberal fix is in. Better hope your job pays well if you want to heat your home in the coming winters.

Posted by: Chadermando on August 3 2005 2:57 PM

Setting the WACC is a simply game of creating expenses in new investments that are to be picked up for by the rate payer in the guaranteed return that the utility company seeks.

This is exactly why public esential and monopolistic infrastructure should not be privatized.

Privatization of esential infrastruture like BC Gas, BC Hydro, and BC Rail is in effect taking the round about route to public subsidization of elite insiders empire building schemes.

BC has been sold to the highest bidder, and we will pay for their bid.

Posted by: gypsy on August 3 2005 6:32 PM

Well, well, I do declare!!! I have a definite feeling that we have been "had."
But think of it this way. That American company owes us 73 MILLION bucks, cause we borrowed the money to help Teresen, and the debt now goes to Kinder Morgan-right??? But do not despair that they will lose anything. Our rates will go up to accommodate that interest. I have this gut feeling that we have been "duped," and not even hardly by what I would consider the finest??? And to think our Mayor and Council fought so hard for Teresen and the promise of a few million down the road-like way down the road-like 15 years!!!!
Why do we even bother going to the polls and voting in this city??? Seems kind of pointless to me. Most of the residents here do not even care about what takes place. A big deal to them is tourists in parking lots!!! Illegal you say??? What about the 4000 plus illegal suites in this city??? Those poor apartment owners must feel that loss daily.
I sure wish sombebody would bring me up to speed on what is important in this city.
Right now and for the rest of the summer it will be tourists and bugs. Can I live with that??? Yes siree-it is that lack of choice-which we all must get accustomed to. Brace yourselves-the worst is yet to come.

Posted by: Opatcho on August 4 2005 10:14 AM

What can I say? But Plato said,"unless we take an interest in those who govern use we shall be governed by those worse then ourselves.