Oil

Removing overburden at the Athabasca Oil Sands operation.

Further to yesterday's post, there was some good news regarding the opposition to Canada's oil sands operation. As you may know, there is a large movement in Europe to declare this oil 'dirty' and encourage a Europe wide ban on its import. Our good friends in the UK, Netherlands, Spain and Poland are supporting us because they recognize the hypocrisy for what it is. I get the feeling the powerful environmental lobby is trying to punish Canada for its stand on Kyoto. (see yesterday's post)

Ooze!

Apart from the misinformation out there about the oil sands, I see the whole situation in a different light.

Imagine for a moment, that there was a large oil tanker truck travelling the roads north of Edmonton, and it left the road, tipped over, split open and spewed its contents into the ditch. There would be a haz-mat team there in an instant and there would be no cost prohibition, nor stone unturned to make certain that every last drop of oil was mopped up and no damage done to the environment.

The photo above is natural bitumen oozing out of the bank on the Athabasca River. The ditches along the highways look very similar to this. There is oil oozing everywhere in that country.

So, let's look at the oil sands as the most ambitious reclamation, or oil cleanup in the history of mankind. They are taking dirty, oily, gooey sand and cleaning it up, removing all traces of oil, and returning it to nature as clean sand. This, to me, is something the environmentalists should be embracing.  

Down town Ft. McMurray Alberta

Why do I even care about this? Because I own property in Ft. McMurray (a chunk of the high rises on the right hand side of the above photo) and as an owner, I have been there. I have seen what goes on there, and I keep myself informed about the situation. I have what you call a vested interest. When I hear that the USA is bowing down to the environmentalists to delay building a pipeline, that would bring them a non-stop supply of oil, from a friendly neighbour, as opposed to some middle eastern quasi enemy, I get more than irritated.  

Weathering the Storm

Coquihalla backwoods cabin

Once upon a time, there was a very large housing complex (650 units) that the owner wanted to sell. She thought that it would be easier if she divided the property into 4 strata titles, that way, if need be, she could sell to four owners, or just one. As it turned out, a group of investors purchased the whole project and it remained under the management of four strata management entities. It was a bit cumbersome, but the cost of amalgamation was high and as long as everyone co-operated things ran smoothly.

One day, several very greedy people decided they would hi-jack one of the strata entities and guarantee the owners of that particular strata low overhead and bigger rent cheques. How they did it was to lower the standards of who they would rent to, to guarantee full occupancy, and when problems would arise, they would not address them, but continue to simply 'milk the cow'.

Conditions deteriorated even more when they began to rent to a certain African ethnic group of young men who were the drug dealers in town. Soon there were drug deals in the parking lots, the hallways and the lobbies. There were shootings, stabbings, and fights. The others in the complex began to move out. Revenues fell and soon everyone who was an owner in the development became very concerned. The owners in the other three quarters of the development had their hands tied because any changes required all four stratas to agree.

Over the last few years, there have been steps taken to rectify this situation, mainly to amalgamate all four stratas. With many lawyers involved and much money spent, it is beginning to look hopeful again. Over the next few days the results will become known. Why do I care?  My hopes and dreams for retirement depend in large part to the outcome of this battle.  

On Being Private

In most things, I am not a very private person. I was not always this way. I have found that when people trust me, they open up to me and it follows that because I am a trusting person, I readily open up to people. Or maybe I should say that I share information, ideas, and opinions with people. I think one of my motivations is that I appreciate it when others do this to me, so I want to be like that with others.
One example of this that comes to mind is my willingness to share investment ideas. When I hear good news, I just like to share it so we can all benefit. The opposite of that is when I hear of a good investment and do not share it, then only I benefit, and I have deprived any one of my friends the joy of success. It goes both ways, however, in that sometimes the investment can go sour, and indeed this had happened. This is when I tend to 'turtle' and promise myself that I will just keep my mouth shut next time. Not only is there great pain in helping your friends lose their money, but this sort of thing tends to ruin one's reputation as a wise investor. It seems that ten successes and one failure still makes one a poor investor. The expectation of total success in every venture is unrealistic. Tossing the ball toward the basket in a game, comes to mind. At what percentage of shots that make points, is a player deemed successful? One thing is certain. 100% of shots not taken, fail. So I continue to take shots. My dilemma, increasingly, is, do I tell my friends to take the shots with me.