Well, the time estimates in my last post were a bit off. We didn’t receive the ERCB’s decision while I was on vacation last month, and we didn’t receive summer either. Ask me how thrilled I was to get on the plane home and hear that it was snowing in Calgary on May 29!
But despite having visited the UK for part of my trip -- where the British are known for their talk about weather – I’ll put that conversation aside and get to the matter at hand.
Yesterday, the ERCB issued a conditional approval for the Sullivan project. Their news release can be found here, and the entire decision report is here.
We’ve already received some media interest – stories are available online from the Calgary Herald and Calgary Sun.
Obviously, we’re pleased with the approval, but it’s still early days. We’re studying the conditions and we’ll see where best to go from there. In the short-term, our focus in the company’s Natural Gas business is still on streamlinining our portfolio (you may have heard that we’ve been selling some natural gas assets this year) and further developing our longer-term strategy for the business.
But if and when we move ahead on Sullivan, you can be sure we’re still committed to developing this long-life resource in a responsible way. Nothing else would be acceptable, as demonstrated by the ERCB’s 15 conditions of approval, and their reference to the 300+ commitments made by Petro-Canada (now Suncor) during the regulatory hearing.
(The ERCB’s conditions and a summary of our commitments are available via the link above to the full decision report.)