The Financial Post reports that, “The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is making a sizeable investment in Canada’s tar sands.”
“The pension plan announced that it was making a $250-million private placement in Laricina Energy Ltd., a Calgary-based company that has a portfolio of oil sands assets that range from properties in the McMurray formation as well as sites near Grand Rapids and Grosmont.”
“One member of Canada Pension Plan Investment Board will be appointed to the Laricina board until the next shareholders meeting at which the board of directors are to be elected.”
The Laricina website says, “Laricina has a large concentrated resource base with approximately 4.6 billion net recoverable barrels as a best case. Our plan includes a staged approach to expand production beyond 500,000 gross barrels of bitumen per day.”
On average, two to five barrels of water are needed to produce one barrel of oil.
Maude Barlow has said, “To me, the tar sands are Canada’s Mordor. The air is foul, the water is being drained and poisoned and giant tailings ponds line the Athabasca River.”
At a time when the world needs to urgently address climate change, the tar sands are the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada.
The Council of Canadians is calling for a transition to a tar sands-free future and the promotion of green energy to stop the harm to downstream communities, the increasing destruction of water, growing greenhouse gas emissions, and other threats to our ecological sustainability.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board should not be investing our pension funds in these destructive projects.
The full Financial Post article is at http://www.financialpost.com/news/invest%20sands/3240895/story.html#ixzz0sud2oPib.
