Venezuela Oil Deal Doesn't Threaten Alberta's Dominance

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she doesn't see an immediate threat to the province's oil sector following a US-Venezuela deal that grants America access to billions of barrels of Venezuelan oil.

Smith pointed out at an unrelated news conference in Calgary on Tuesday that Alberta already produces about five million barrels of oil per day, while Venezuela is currently producing roughly 1.1 million barrels per day, according to the International Energy Agency.

'It really just reinforces why the West Coast oil pipeline is the right answer,' Smith said. 'Why we want to get an additional one million barrels to the B.C. coast so that we can expand markets to Asia.'

Richard Masson, a former executive with the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, echoed Smith's sentiments, saying that most of the skilled staff and technicians for PDVSA, Venezuela's state-owned oil company, left the South American country in recent years.

'I'm not sure I would put a lot of faith in its sustainability because companies actually have to invest tens or hundreds of billions of dollars of capital to develop the Venezuelan industry,' Masson said. 'You've got to be able to convince private sector capital that the country is a secure enough place that when you put your money in, you'll get it out 20 years from now.'