How to get Canada's oil to export markets?

[Admiral Beez]

The answer is refining and other value-added in Canada, which creates much higher earnings, profits, royalties, employment, lower pipeline/spill risks (refined gas floats, bitumen sinks), and it also creates more pipeline capacity out of thin air as you can pump more dramatically more cubic metres of refined gas in the same pipe than you can bitumen.

The question isn't should we be adding value here in Canada, but what's stopping us? I assume market forces, foreign ownership or leverage is preventing your vision from coming to pass.

It annoys me when consulting "experts" from finance or industry have some notion on how to improve a situation, but provide no plan to get us there that addresses the reasons we're not there now.

 

[BurlOak]

The question isn't should we be adding value here in Canada, but what's stopping us? I assume market forces, foreign ownership or leverage is preventing your vision from coming to pass.

It annoys me when consulting "experts" from finance or industry have some notion on how to improve a situation, but provide no plan to get us there that addresses the reasons we're not there now.

I assume the refined product cannot be piped.
Thus, if refined in Alberta, then only Alberta and those within trucking distance would use Alberta oil.
If pumped to see, again I am not sure if refined gasoline can be shipped - so going to see if for exporting crude.
Maybe the only option is to pipe oil to Ontario and have a refinery here - where it can serve Southern Ontario plus Quebec and several Great Lakes states.

The idea of adding refining capacity has not been floated even once (by any business), so I assume the economics are not even close to working.

 

[Northern Light]

I assume the refined product cannot be piped.
Thus, if refined in Alberta, then only Alberta and those within trucking distance would use Alberta oil.

That is Enough! That is the single most asinine comment in the history of UT.

Refined bitumen, fully-upgraded, is gasoline; you can also upgrade to fully refined crude oil as an intermediate. Of course it can be piped, and in fact it flows much more freely at much higher volumes than bitumen.

Really. Wow.

You clearly understand so little about so much, yet you feel like you should post on every subject voluminously.

You shouldn't.

 

[ian]

The National Post posted a lengthy article on why it is difficult for Canada to refine our own oil. There are a couple of insightful points there.

 

[Admiral Beez]

That is Enough! That is the single most asinine comment in the history of UT .

What does this post accomplish other than to knock a person down? I could do without the peacocking.

I assume the refined product cannot be piped.

Anything from solid aggregates to natural gas can be piped, given sufficient back pressure and pipe integrity.

But while natural gas travels nationwide, I don’t believe we pipe automotive gasoline across the country. Even heating/diesel fuel is not piped across Canada. Here's the map of pipelines and their use.

There must be economic, environmental and/or political reasons. So at best we’ll semi-process Alberta’s bitumen into thinner product to be piped for further refining elsewhere, same as the Arabs, Brits, Norwegians do; they’re not making gasoline at the drill heads. That doesn’t mean those final value added refineries can’t be in Canada, but how do you get the semi-processed former bitumen to refineries in Ontario where the cars are?

 

[Admiral Beez]

One thing that strikes me is the hypocrisy of Alberta. In the 1970s Ottawa tried to include Alberta's oil in a National Energy Plan, making getting Alberta's oil to market a national strategic interest. Well, we know how that went, with Alberta telling Ottawa to mind its own business and leave oil management to Alberta. But now that the easy oil is already drained, and the going with the harsher bitumen is harder going, Alberta wants Ottawa to see the former's oil as a national strategic interest, with Alberta demanding that Ottawa do something to get Alberta's oil to market. You can't have it both ways, if this is Canada's oil, Canada can fix it, but the "let them freeze" mentality has to go.

 

[Filip]

I've been enjoying watching the 'Alberta Advantage' (tm) implode over the past few years.

For years we've been told that their success is not due to digging oil out of the ground, but due to the truculence and perseverance of its people, and the high energy entrepreneurial society Albertans have created.

Well...

Too bad.

 

[Northern Light]

What does this post accomplish other than to knock a person down? I could do without the peacocking.

With all due respect.

That was not peacocking. You meant it as 'showboating' I take it, which that most certainly not.

I am a polite and respectful poster.

However, Burloak has a habit of posting on subjects about which he knows precious little, and is too lazy to use 'google'.

That's not acceptable.

As an adult, you are expected to think before you speak or post.

We all have knowledge gaps, but you address those by research..........absent that, at least be open about your ignorance by asking a question, rather than making an assumption.

There is a finite limit to my patience with willful blindness.

 

[BurlOak]

What does this post accomplish other than to knock a person down? I could do without the peacocking.

Thanks.

I don’t believe we pipe automotive gasoline across the country.

Careful, if you are not certain you may get attacked.

Even heating/diesel fuel is not piped across Canada. Here's the map of pipelines and their use.

So that brings us back to the only place (in Canada) it could likely be refined into gasoline is Ontario (or QC or NB).
It has been talked about for years, if not decades, and no business is considering it.
So if we say we want Alberta oil refined in Canada - how do we accomplish that it nobody wants to do it.
Would any federal government give tax breaks to Ontario to take refining capacity and jobs from NB.
Would Ontario subsidize this?
Would Alberta subsidize construction in Ontario?

 

[BurlOak]

That is Enough! That is the single most asinine comment in the history of UT.

Refined bitumen, fully-upgraded, is gasoline; you can also upgrade to fully refined crude oil as an intermediate. Of course it can be piped, and in fact it flows much more freely at much higher volumes than bitumen.

Really. Wow.

You clearly understand so little about so much, yet you feel like you should post on every subject voluminously.

You shouldn't.

Summary:
Gas not piped (to East or South).
Gas not shipped (across Pacific).
Sound nice to fully refined in Canada - but who will do it.

Goes without saying.
Some degree of refinement is needed to pipe - can't pipe directly from ground.
Based on context, referring to gas (gasoline, not vapour) and home heating.
We are talking about large quantities, not just for local market (which is maybe 1% of North America population). Alberta may (they actually do) refine their own gas, but its not what we are talking about.
I didn't proof read before posting.

Asinine
Using "see" instead of "sea"

 

[Admiral Beez]

What we should have done is kept Petro Canada as a national company, with expansion to vertical integration of drilling, piping, refining and transport to the final user.

 

[44 North]

What does this post accomplish other than to knock a person down? I could do without the peacocking. Anything from solid aggregates to natural gas can be piped, given sufficient back pressure and pipe integrity.

But while natural gas travels nationwide, I don’t believe we pipe automotive gasoline across the country. Even heating/diesel fuel is not piped across Canada. Here's the map of pipelines and their use.

Hm, one wonders why we don't pipe gasoline/diesel transcontinentally as we do natural gas. If it ends up being refined in the centre of the country or continent, seems impractical to haul it around in trucks or trains. I mean, if we're piping unrefined stuff, then why not pipe *refined* stuff.

I'm sure people have answers, so those were more rhetorical musings. But on a basic level the current process seems convoluted and backward. Pump crude out of the country in pipes across thousands of kms, have it refined, import finished product back to origin country - albeit bit by bit in a slow, energy-intensive means. Why not use pipelines similar to those used for refinement, but to bring refined products. Either domestically or internationally.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Pump crude out of the country in pipes across thousands of kms, have it refined, import finished product back to origin country.

i don’t believe we import finished gasoline from the US or elsewhere. AIUI, we refine the gas we use, but yes, the crude oil is imported.

 

[TrickyRicky]

Admiral, your point on Alberta hypocrisy is I believe one of the primary not discussed issues in the media. I actually believe in getting Alberta oil to tidewater and to have some kind of national energy infrastructure. In other words I believe in oil and gas as a national resource even if the vast majority of benefit only goes to oil producing regions. However, Alberta wants it both ways. They want all the benefits of their oil and they want a national strategy catering to their benefit, and yet they are one of the most obstructionist elements in the Federation when it comes to interprovincial relations and Federal government initiatives and powers. The legacy of that obstructionism is the source of the current predicament. The fact that Trudeau is getting all the flack is so absurd as to be borderline delusional. Trudeau is playing politics and causing his own mess but the entirety of the current "crisis" is a result of decisions made by previous Provincial politicians in Alberta and previous Federal governments. Give him time and Trudeau can join the pantheon of leaders failing but he hasn't even been in power long enough to have made a difference given the timeframe required to construct a pipeline or other outlet

 

[JGHali]

Also, Alberta's fiscal problems have a fairly simple solution or at least partial remedy. It's called a provincial sales tax.