Oil Sands quotes of the day

President of the Canadian Division of Devon Energy, Chris Seasons, smiles during the Oil Sands Summit in Calgary, Alberta, March 22, 2010.

CALGARY (Reuters) - Following are comments from industry executives at the Reuters Oil Sands Summit on Tuesday.

ON FUTURE OF OIL SANDS:

When you add all those (environmental and social impacts) up, we don't think there's a green way of doing tar sands development.

-- Greenpeace campaigner Mike Hudema on position that oil sands development needs to be phased out.

Energy security doesn't necessarily need to be at odds with the environment. I think there's ways we can work together to look at finding solutions to some of these limits to growth.

-- Jackie Forrest, director of global oil, IHS CERA

If the Alberta government hit the pause button today and said there won't be any more approvals for 12 months while we do an assessment of the regulatory gaps, you would still see a more than doubling of production, with all the growth associated with that, and jobs and construction.

-- Simon Dyer, oil sands director, Pembina Institute, an environmental think tank, on its proposal to suspend project approvals

ON HIDDEN AGENDAS

The same groups that are attempting to sell (the oil sands) as an environmental concern, are really in my estimation, there's another agenda at work here. It's around trade barriers. ... This is another way to, behind the camouflage of environmental collectedness, reestablish trade barriers.

-- Ron Liepert, Alberta's energy minister

ON LABOR COSTS

The labor situation was kind of insane, to be honest. You had projects being built, people that maybe should have been trimming grass at a golf course or whatever may be. You saw people making $40 or $50 an hour ... a lot of imported labor was being brought in from overseas and from elsewhere. That went away in 2008 and early 2009. Now we see a much more rational approach.

--Steve Wuori, executive vice-president, Enbridge Inc

We just need to find ways to build these projects faster with less people so we don't run into bottlenecks around labor and engineering and equipment. We have to find ways to bring in the infrastructure required so we don't run into the high-growth scenario that we saw and the impacts that had on the community in Fort McMurray.

-- Jackie Forrest, director of global oil, IHS CERA

"TAR SANDS" VS "OIL SANDS"

It's extremely ironic when companies say "How dare they call it tar sands?" when just a decade ago it was tar sands and it was explicitly rebranded by industry as oil sands to sound cleaner and more valuable. From our perspective it's a phony war. There are serious environmental impacts that need to be resolved, whether you call it tar sands or oil sands.

-- Simon Dyer of Pembina Institute on politically charged controversy over what to call the industry

ON ALBERTANS:

We as Albertans and as an industry in Alberta are too small a player in the world to fight amongst ourselves. If we don't collectively work together to advance Alberta's energy sector, but in some cases be prepared to collectively defend what is taking place here in Alberta, we all lose.

-- Ron Liepert, Alberta's energy minister

ON AMERICANS:

"I think that the vast, vast majority of American citizens don't understand, don't really care that much whether it's so-called dirty oil or so-called clean oil. ... They just don't know, and why should they? As long as the factories are running, and cars can fuel up, why would they be all that interested or concerned.

-- Ron Liepert, Alberta's energy minister

ON CANADIANS:

There are, I would say, thousands and maybe tens of thousands employed in manufacturing facilities in Ontario and Quebec, who if, tomorrow, the oil industry shut down, would probably be unemployed. I doubt they recognize that.

-- Ron Liepert, Alberta's energy minister

ON INDUSTRY'S FOCUS ON TECHNOLOGY INSTEAD OF COMMUNICATIONS

We knew it had to be sustainable but the industry said, "Let's just keep our head down and do a good job." I think the momentum on the environmental side overtook us

-- Greg Stringham, vice-president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers

(Compiled by Frank McGurty)