Quote:
Originally Posted by Stampsfan
While that is true, the oil coming into the US and potentially from Venezuela is also heavy crude. Refineries in and around Houston, on the Gulf Coast, are currently built to process that crude. That is why heavy oil from Western Canada was to travel down through Keystone to the Gulf Coast, to be refined and shipped.
|
Yes, a lot of the Venezuelan reserves are also heavy, but not as viscous as Canadian oil sands. And yes, we (the Texas Gulf Coast) do have local refineries designed to process the heavier stuff, but it's also more costly and time consuming. The abrasiveness wears out the equipment faster - pipes, pumps, valves, tanks, separators, etc. - and that equipment has to be replaced more often.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stampsfan
As for environmental standards, while I do not have any exact metrics, I would be shocked if oil extracted from Russia (or Saudi, for example) via a well, pumped to a loading station, loaded into tankers, loaded onto a barge, having that barge travel across the Atlantic, unloaded from the barge, transferred to a refinery in the US, and then refined is (in the end) a lower carbon footprint than shipping product directly from Western Canada to the US Gulf Coast via a pipeline.
|
The refining process of heavy oil sands leaves behind a bunch of nasty hazardous coke (and not the stuff you drink). Can we ship that crap back to Canada? Maybe make the pipeline bi-directional and send that stuff back to y'all?
Please don't take what I said the wrong way. I'm not in disagreement with you. I actually agree with you. I'm just trying to explain why (in my opinion) we don't get more oil from Canada. If it were up to me, we would.