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Resource sterilization: reserve replacement, financial risk, and environmental review in Canada's tar sands

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  • Anna Zalik

Abstract

. Pivoting on the process of reserve replacement undertaken by key oil transnationals in Canada as a spatial fix for capital, the article considers how individual firms employ formal review processes to project their strategic interests. The proponent firm shapes, through its own participation, the regulatory terrain on which competitors will subsequently operate. In Alberta's tar sands, the oil industry's reserve replacement process serves as a spatial–temporal fix for capital, and the review process and tribunal acts as a complementary socio-ecological fix – restricting social/affective claims, including First Nations resistance, to an official tribunal setting. In seeking formal approval to replace declining oil and gas reserves with unconventionals, proponent firms claim investor security, while social movement opponents emphasize risk and insecurity arising from carbon-intensive, frontier extraction. In the case of the contested Shell Jackpine Mine Expansion Joint Review Panel, as in other environmental assessment processes in Alberta, the proponent firm and state representatives employ the oxymoronic term ‘resource sterilization’ to describe ecological protection. ‘Resource sterilization’ offers a discursive representation of how capital's spatio-temporal fix in unconventionals is facilitated through the terms of the formal review process, in which social claims are muted.

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  • Anna Zalik, 2015. "Resource sterilization: reserve replacement, financial risk, and environmental review in Canada's tar sands," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(12), pages 2446-2464, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:47:y:2015:i:12:p:2446-2464
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X15609218
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gavin Bridge, 2008. "Global production networks and the extractive sector: governing resource-based development," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 8(3), pages 389-419, May.
    2. Cyrus Bina, 2006. "The Globalization of Oil: A Prelude to a Critical Political Economy," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(2), pages 4-34.
    3. Donald MacKenzie, 2006. "An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262134608, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Fry, Matthew & Brannstrom, Christian, 2017. "Emergent patterns and processes in urban hydrocarbon governance," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 383-393.

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