[commanderkai]

Thanos wrote:

The Democrats control the Senate right now so there's no way this stupid stunt that's explicitly designed to embarass the President will pass anyway.

You don't think the Republicans can't get a small handful of Senators to go along with this? Somebody's pretty optimistic. Even if they can't, the Keystone pipeline will still be brought up in the election.

[DrCaleb]

raydan wrote:

DrCaleb wrote:

I'd rather we (Canadian Taxpayers) don't wind up paying for the pipeline. I'd also rather that we shipped refined product, rather than bitumen.

That said, Obama is between a rock and a hard place. The need for the pipeline can only be eliminated after a serious conversation that USians need to have with their countrymen. So Obama must approve it. But his voter base is opposed to it because they oppose anything that might have a negative environmental effect just on principal, so he can't aprove it. But they need the mythical jobs that come with it, so he needs to approve it because even environmentalists need jobs.

I'm glad someone is taking responsibility for it's approval though. Hope it's the right decision.

A question... what country refines oil before exporting it?

Canadian_Mind wrote:

None. I personally have no issue with exporting raw oil to countries with refineries to refine for their own use. But there is no reason why Canada shouldn't be refining every drop of oil we use domestically into our plastics, our gasoline, our motor oil, etc. granted, we import certain products made from refined oil, so it'll never be 100%. But it could be established that for every unit of oil product we import, we have to export that same amount of product (not including raw oil). Whether that is measured in volume/weight, or by dollar value, and whether it is dollar value of the original crude or the finished product would be up to the economic-wenies to figure out.

I didn't write 'oil', I wrote 'bitumen'. It's different. It's the raw tar as it is seperated from the sand and made slightly liquid using solvents. Some companies, like Syncrude and Suncor upgrade the bitumen into Synthetic crude oil, and export that. Shell ships the bitumen to it's upgrader in Fort Saskatchewan to be upgraded to crude.

The Northern Gateway pipeline and the Keystone XL will both ship raw bitumen, to be upgraded elsewhere.

But we should be refining more of our own oil for domestic consumption of those products too.

[DrCaleb]

Lemmy wrote:

1Peg wrote:

Who's going to build this refinery?
Who's going to pay for it?
Who are we going to sell the gasoline to?
Ever wonder how much it costs to build a refinery?
Ever wonder how long it takes to build a refinery?

Also, how much longer will a refinery be of use to us? If it were 1950, great, go ahead and build it, but in 2012 that money would be better spent on investing in the technologies that will replace gasoline. It makes no sense to make capital investment in sunset products.

BartSimpson wrote:

Canada won't build a new refinery because between the First Nations, the Liberals, the NDP, and the environuts any smart investment group would not even bother doing a due diligence on such a project. Sadly, the only way a new refinery would be built in Canada is if the Federal government does it.

The Government of Alberta is backing the construction of a new refinery near Fort Saskatchewan. The new royalty regime means instead of getting paid by the barrell, we instead get bitumen in kind to refine ourselves and sell the product at market rates.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/ ... L620110216

[andyt]

God damn socialists. As long as they're not subsidizing, good for them.

[BartSimpson]

andyt wrote:

Quote:

Enbridge spokesperson Paul Stanway said his company is simply meeting the demand that is here today, but if there was upgraded crude oil to sell to the world the pipeline would be able to move it there.

Not a word about NDP, natives, etc. That's the bullshit part.

Do you really think that such decisions take place in a vacuum independent from other issues extent in Canada and Alberta? If your notions about 'the rich' and 'multinational corporations' are representative of enough people in Canada do you not think that this will have an effect on foreign investment?

Three firms withdrew their proposals because it didn't make business sense to execute them. The remaining firm is talking up a storm but building nothing...probably because their investors are looking at why the other three consortiums withdrew and they're wondering if they should do the same thing.

*Maybe* if the pipeline is approved then maybe someone will want to reconsider the risks. But as it stands nothing is happening.

[andyt]

They withdrew their proposals because it made more business sense to just rip out the raw product and sell it for a quick buck. Building refineries just doesn't make sense, because we don't have the internal market for it, nor the infrastructure to move a multiplicity of products. Building upgraders makes sense tho, it seems to me. And as Caleb showed you, the AB govt had to get involved to build a refinery. They would face the same obstacles from natives and environmentalists as anybody else, but they seem to be going ahead.

[BartSimpson]

andyt wrote:

And as Caleb showed you, the AB govt had to get involved to build a refinery.

Then you're agreeing with the heart of my orignal post so the point of your argument with me was...what?

[Thanos]

A new refinery would be of direct benefit to Canadian drivers who presumably see a significant drop in fuel price if more local supply were made available. The problem is that there's no way to convince the oil companies that a lower fuel price is in their best interest. Greater supply = lower price = less profit for them. Fairly simple math anyway, which explains why the companies would much rather expand/upgrade refining capacity in Chicago or Houston instead of building a brand new facility in Alberta.

The cost of a new refinery would be in the billions anyway. Without both federal and provincial government funding and subsidies it'd be just too cost prohibitive for even a consortium of companies to do on their own.

[Thanos]

commanderkai wrote:

Thanos wrote:

The Democrats control the Senate right now so there's no way this stupid stunt that's explicitly designed to embarass the President will pass anyway.

You don't think the Republicans can't get a small handful of Senators to go along with this? Somebody's pretty optimistic. Even if they can't, the Keystone pipeline will still be brought up in the election.

Keystone's going to happen regardless of who wins the election. The Senate GOP'ers are just trying to rub President Obama's nose in it for political reasons. If the 60-day review ends successfully it could even conceivably be approved before summer of this year. There's a large number of liberal Democrat whiners involved with the anti-Keystone nonsense. They might bitch about President Obama now but I don't seriously believe that they're going abandon him over this one issue, not with the hideous spectre of a Romney or Gingrich presidency looming. Obama's the only one in DC maintaining any semblance of sanity and the rank-and-file Dems would have to be insane themselves to give up on him just because he didn't turn out to be the second coming of Robert F. Kennedy.

[Saffron]

We had a refinery in Montreal, but they shut it down.

Shell Canada is converting its Montreal refinery into a storage centre for gasoline, diesel and aviation fuels, spelling the end for the 76-year-old facility after it failed to attract a buyer.

Job cuts are expected at the company's largest Canadian plant, with union representatives expressing concern that the overwhelming majority of its members will be left without work once the conversion is complete.

"Shell's preferred option was to sell the refinery, and despite significant efforts to market the facility to a number of parties, no buyer was found," Shell spokesman Larry Lalonde said.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/ ... osing.html