Notes From All Over, Part 2 -- August 23, 2019

Canada: This was sent to me by a reader late yesterday afternoon. I was just beginning my afternoon-early-evening-late-night-Uber-granddaughter-driving.

From that highly credible, mainstream media outlet, MSN:

Capital keeps marching out of Canada’s oil industry, with Kinder Morgan’s sale of its remaining holdings in the country on Wednesday adding to more than $30 billion of foreign company divestitures in the past three years.

Wow.

Mexico first, with "no growth" in 2Q19. Now, Canada.

We've talked about Canada at length, mostly in regard to the Trans Mountain Pipeline. I suppose it was several months ago now that I first identified Canada as a no-growth country, another anti-business country. It looks like MSN is woke.

I saw this story over at Rigzone yesterday but failed to post it then. What a doofus. I completely missed the significance of this story:

Pembina Pipeline, based in Calgary, is snapping up Kinder’s Canadian assets and a cross-border pipeline in a $3.3 billion deal. For Houston-based Kinder, the deal completes an exit from a country that has frustrated more than a few companies -- from ConocoPhillips and Royal Dutch Shell to Marathon Oil.

More from the article and then I'll quit:

The drumbeat of exits, rare for such a stable oil-producing country, adds an extra layer of gloom for an industry that accounts for about a fifth of Canada’s exports. The energy sector -- centered around Alberta’s oil sands -- has struggled to rebound since the 2014 crash in global oil prices, with capital spending declining for five straight years and job cuts pushing the province’s unemployment rate above 6%. Alberta is forecast to post the slowest growth of any region in Canada this year.

The situation isn’t likely to improve any time soon, with key pipelines like TC Energy Corp.’s Keystone XL and Enbridge Inc.’s expansion of its Line 3 conduit bogged down by legal challenges. The lack of pipelines has weighed on Canadian heavy crude prices for years, sending them to a record low late in 2018.

Canada foreign exchange reserves at this link.

US dollar / Canadian dollar exchange rate at this link. I would look at the 10-year history to see how far Canada has fallen.

Other recent major exist from Canada:

Other recent major exits include ConocoPhillips’ $13.2 billion sale of its oil-sands and natural gas assets to Cenovus Energy Inc. in 2017, and Shell’s and Marathon’s sales of their stakes in an oil-sands project to Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. for about $10.7 billion that same year. Canadian Natural also bought Oklahoma City-based Devon Energy Corp.’s Canadian heavy oil assets this year for $2.79 billion. Norway’s Equinor ASA pulled out in 2016 after facing pressure at home to invest in lower-emission projects.