Proposed Canada oil sales ban may backfire-Alberta

By Frank Pingue

TORONTO, Oct 9 (Reuters) - While Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper wants to ban heavy-oil sales to countries with lax environmental records, he should not forget that Canada relies on crude imports from nations that make little effort to cut emissions, Alberta's premier said on Thursday.

Harper offered a plan to ban tar-like bitumen exports from Canada to countries with lax emission rules during a campaign stop last month ahead of the Oct. 14 general election.

But Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach, premier of the biggest energy-producing province, dismissed the federal Conservatives' plan as vague. He also said it did nothing to target refineries in eastern Canada that import crude from such places as the Middle East, offshore West Africa or South America, where environmental standards may not be as high as Canada's.

"You can't have it two ways," Stelmach told reporters after a Toronto speech to the Economic Club of Toronto.

"Today there's oil arriving on Canadian shores to Canadian refineries, mostly in Eastern Canada, that comes for countries that do have a higher carbon footprint."

Alberta's oil sands represent the biggest oil deposits after Saudi Arabia's conventional reserves, but they are far more complicated, carbon-intensive and expensive to extract.

Stelmach said it was too soon too say how Harper's plan could affect Alberta since he has few details and because there are too many countries that do not have anywhere near the same environmental rules his province has.

Since the Conservatives' campaign proposal was introduced, it has prompted more questions than answers among oil executives, environmentalists and the Alberta government.

The Harper government has said it plans to cut Canada's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent from 2007 levels by 2020. Environmentalists have criticized the government for not being more stringent and for falling far short of Canada's commitment under the Kyoto Protocol.

Stelmach said he would need a better explanation of the bitumen plan's specifics, but understood one was unlikely to come soon as Harper is in the final stretch of the election campaign.

"It's been rather vague and we didn't get too excited as the province of Alberta because there weren't any details," said Stelmach. "So we'll have to talk about it and see what he means by that, and what kind of environmental regulation he is referring to."