Alberta, Ottawa and the U.S. federal government have been singing the same lyrics for months on the need for a continental energy strategy.

Now it looks like all three governments are co-ordinating their strategies to turn their words into action.

Premier Ralph Klein is scheduled as a keynote speaker at the Western Governors Association’s North American Energy Summit in Albuquerque, N.M. in mid-April. He’ll talk about “state/provincial perspectives” at a plenary session.

Sharing the keynote speaker duties is Republican Senator Pete Domenici, chairman of the powerful U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. Domenici is the man most responsible for pushing a now-stalled comprehensive U.S. energy bill, which includes implementing a national energy policy, through the Senate.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson will deliver another keynote speech, whose theme includes “the need for North American co-operation to improve the continent’s energy.”

The Western governors’ powwow isn’t the only sign that the three governments are pursuing a more co-ordinated approach.

New federal Natural Resources Minister John Efford, in his first meeting in Calgary with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, said earlier this month that one of his top priorities will be to work on a national energy strategy that strengthens ties with the U.S.

Efford said he supports more energy development in Canada to help the U.S. achieve greater energy security. That includes expanding Alberta’s oilsands, tapping Arctic gas reserves and building two liquefied natural gas terminals on the East Coast to keep the American economic engine running.

Former Reform party leader Preston Manning also chimed in, calling separately for Ottawa to make drafting a continental energy security pact a priority in trade negotiations with the U.S.

There’s no question that Alberta’s and Canada’s economies depend on energy exports. The latest forecast by the National Energy Board predicted the total value of Canadian natural gas production will nearly double to $51 billion a year by 2015.

An agreement that ensures reliable energy supply in North America and reduces dependency on foreign sources can bring tremendous benefits, including more stable oil and gas prices and technological innovation.

But such a pact should not come at the expense of Alberta’s boreal forests or Canada’s Arctic environment, or Canadian acquiescence to settle other vital export issues, including beef cattle and softwood lumber.

A continental ‘pipeline’ must flow both ways.

CANUCK CLOUT

One man who’s now in a key position to more closely link Alberta’s oilsands development with U.S. energy needs is John Richels.

The 52-year-old Canadian oil executive, CEO of Devon Canada Corp. in Calgary, will move to Oklahoma City after being promoted to president of Devon Energy Corp., North America’s second-largest independent petroleum producer.

Richels, who has a bold vision of an integrated North American energy market, wants construction of Devon’s $550-million Jackfish oilsands development south of Fort McMurray to start next winter.

The project, awaiting approval by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, will tap about 300 million barrels of oilsands with steam-assisted gravity drainage technology. Most of the oil will flow to the U.S.

Devon also plans to expand its Canadian natural gas holdings through drilling and development in Western Canada and offshore in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.

NEXEN EXPANDS CBM EFFORTS

Spending plans by Nexen Inc. and a deal by Texas-based Quicksilver Resources Inc. underscore the growing importance of coalbed methane (CBM) gas to Alberta’s energy future.

Nexen plans to drill more than 800 wells to tap natural gas in a coal deposit 120 kilometres northwest of Edmonton, in an effort to expand a CBM pilot project into full-scale commercial production.

The company estimates its northern Alberta coal property has gas reserves of more than one trillion cubic feet – nearly two per cent of the Canadian inventory of 59 trillion cubic feet.

Quicksilver Resources, through its Calgary-based subsidiary, MGV Energy Inc., paid $5.4 million to acquire a 50-per-cent working interest in 76,800 acres of mineral rights, 10.5 net wells, 550,000 cubic feet a day of net production and five billion cubic feet of proven reserves in the Wood River area south of Edmonton.

MGV negotiated the sale with Ice Energy Limited, as part of the sale of Ice Energy to Enerplus Resources Fund. MGV plans “significant drilling” in the area this year, including exploration, pilot and development wells targeting coalbed methane.

PIPELINE HOKEY-POKEY

The proposed Alaska Highway and Mackenzie Valley natural gas pipeline projects always seem to go one step forward, two steps back. In a step forward for the $20-billion U.S. Alaska Highway project, Foothills Pipe Lines Ltd., a subsidiary of TransCanada Corp., has signed an agreement-in-principle with five Kaska First Nations in southeastern Yukon and northern B.C. on a “future participation agreement” to encourage construction of the pipeline.

The agreement-in-principle includes establishing a joint advisory committee, a protocol to take into account traditional Kaska knowledge, and joint strategies on human resources and environmental management.

The future participation agreement will spell out benefits and opportunities the Kaska will receive from the project.

But in two steps backward for the $5-billion Cdn Mackenzie Valley project, three national environmental groups are calling for a full-scale environmental impact assessment of the pipeline.

Their call comes on the heels of an announcement last month by the Mackenzie Valley Producers Group, led by Imperial Oil Ltd., of a six-month delay – to mid 2004 – required to complete extensive paperwork on the project to satisfy 14 separate regulatory agencies.

The Sierra Club of Canada, Canadian Nature Federation and the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee insist that a full public assessment is necessary, because the project will have national and international impacts on Arctic rivers and wildlife habitat.

It will be up to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to recommend such an assessment, if one is required. But it’s hard to disagree with the environmentalists’ argument that this project will transform the North.

FIRE IN THE HOLE

Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. has arranged financing for its estimated $30-million pilot project to test its revolutionary new oilsands-recovery technology.

Petrobank says that TD Securities Inc. and Tristone Capital Inc. will arrange private financing by issuing up to a 40-per-cent equity interest in Petrobank’s subsidiary, Whitesands Insitu Ltd.

Whitesands owns 45 sections of oilsands leases in the Christina Lake region about 170 kilometres south of Fort McMurray, and has rights to use Petrobank’s patented THAI (Toe-to-Heel-Air-Injection) recovery technology.

The technology involves starting a controlled fire in part of an underground bitumen or heavy oil deposit and feeding it with injected air, so the tar-like deposit melts and flows into a horizontal production well to the surface.

Petrobank says the Christina Lake leases hold about one billion barrels of bitumen, and that its THAI process can recover more of the resource at lower cost than other in-situ methods such as steam-assisted gravity drainage.