Approves Asia Supply Route, Ignores US Route
H/T Eric Worrall and Breitbart – Obama’s inability to make a decision on Keystone has finally yielded a result – Canada has made the decision for him.
Breitbart reports Canada has just approved the Enbridge Northern Gateway Project – a major pipeline to ship Canadian oil to Asia.
The Canadian oil will still be burnt – in Asia, instead of America.
All the jobs and energy security which Canadian oil could have delivered to America, will instead be delivered to Asia.
Rather than purchasing crude from a friendly and allied neighbor, the United States will most likely need to continue its reliance upon hostile sources like Venezuela. Energy analysts had hoped that construction of Keystone could have replaced almost half of the current U.S. daily crude purchases from that volatile, anti-American dictatorship, depriving Venezuela of the resources it relies upon to stay in power and fund its Cuban allies.
You can’t say Canada didn’t give America a chance – they waited years for the American administration to come to their senses. But in the end, they couldn’t wait any longer, and have put the interests of Canadians first.
Below is a helpful timeline of Keystone events, courtesy of Al Jazeera.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Another one of the President’s policies that we’d be better off had it failed. Gasoline prices will go up for this.
Between 2015 and 2025, (11 construction seasons) I expect all four projects to be completed.
The big caveat from the Canadian side – a change in Federal government.
Trans Mountain expansion
http://www.transmountain.com/
Energy East to Quebec and New Brunswick
http://www.transcanada.com/energy-east-pipeline.html
Northern Gateway – in some form
http://www.gatewayfacts.ca/
And finishing the Keystone XL.
Need a new President, ideally Republican.
http://keystone-xl.com/
Again, it’s “oil sands”. Nature’s largest oil spill on the planet that Canadians are cleaning up.
Vivian Krause is excellent. She’s a single mother and researcher who works out of her kitchen in Vancouver, a former UN employee and environmentalist. Everybody in B.C. is an environmentalist; they’re born that way, it’s God’s country. But she’s a killer when it comes to reading the fine print on tax returns and in grants. She is the one who uncovered that Bill McKibben’s 350.org was funded by the Rockefellers to the tune of $10 million from inception through its various organizations, and forced him to own up to part of it on his website.
Canadians on this board will appreciate this local Vancouver interview. American charities are attempting to get 40% of Canada’s wilderness areas declared off limits to Canadian development; ‘natch the areas are where Canada’s greatest resources are located. The question is why?
Upthread posters have once again confused resource (oil in place) with technically recoverable reserves (how much can be gotten out at any price using any known method). The Athabascan TRR is about 280 Bbbl according to CAPP. Of that about 100 is presently economic to recover with Brent at about $110/bbl. That number has to be further downgraded by about 10% because not all the bitumen can be upgraded into syncrude. And that fact is why this ‘oil’ will always sell for less than WTI or Brent. WTI is ‘medium heavy’, Brent is ‘light’ crude. Without the added cost of hydro treatment (using hydrogen reformed from natural gas), bitumen isn’t even technically crude oil. It’s asphalt.
At this point the odds of the Northern Gateway project being completed are probably less than Keystone. Barely seen (if at all) in this entire thread is the fact the Gateway project would pass through a fairly large number of aboriginal lands, whose peoples’ rights to consultation and accommodation have just been boosted by an important decision of the Supreme Court of Canada:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/globe-politics-insider/ruling-should-remind-ottawa-of-unfinished-business-with-first-nations/article19362935/#dashboard/follows/
From media reports, the opposition in Canada to the Northern Gateway is far more visceral and deeply felt than what has been seen towards Keystone by Green or Democratic forces in the U.S. Look for dangerous blockades and armed standoffs if the Canadian government attempts to push this through. The Harper government knows this, and deliberately downplayed the decision to approve.
good thing the US is moving to stop using its vast reserves of coal. this will surely help the oil industry deal with the glut of oil. far be it for me to suggest that reducing prices might be a solution to oversupply. much better to get rid of the competition.
Posted one week ago at:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/22/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-138/#comment-1667423
RE item 3. above:
Canadian Government Approves Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline
Project to Transport Oil-Sands Output From Alberta to Pacific Coast
By Paul Viera and Chester Dawson, WSJ, Jun 17, 2014
http://online.wsj.com/articles/canada-government-approves-enbridges-northern-gateway-pipeline-1403041104
A good decision, although for oil tankers I still prefer the port of Prince Rupert to Kitimat. Look at the two locations and routes-to-the-sea on Google Map and I think you will agree.
Canada will be able to export our crude oil via the Atlantic and the Pacific and we will receive world price.
____________
Meanwhile, Iraq is coming unglued and Iran is its best friend – and both countries have Shia majorities.
Keystone XL pipeline, anyone? Barack? Anyone?
____________
George Carlin explained much of the nonsense we see today, when he said:
“You know how stupid the average person is, right?
Well half of them are dumber than that.”
Best regards to all, Allan
TBear says:
June 29, 2014 at 3:31 am
Unbelievable stupidity of Obama. Is he really intent on destroying the USA?
Yes. Remember these people do not like the USA.
Remember that his wife said that (on him getting the nomination) it was the first time she was proud of this country. Guess she wasn’t aware of the moon landings etc….
canada needs to take a lesson from india. NGO’s like tides canada are largely US funded entities that use green policies to hurt the canadian economy to the benefit of their US backers. the end result is US investors get to buy up canadian assets at fire sale prices, using profits from inflated US prices due to restricted competition from canadian suppliers. the mac blo takeover showed how it could be done.
foreign backed NGO’s are engaged in economic treason within canada and should be dealt with by the full force of the law. as we used to say, hangings too good for them.
First the US think that the oil sands are theirs. It is in their controlled zone of influence, so far managed by Canada, a blip on their militray radar. The US does not need this oil yet so goes the KXL pipe. As for Northern Gateway, US Foundations are playing hard ball agitating the greens, buying off natives in order to make it so difficult almost impossible to build and sell oil to THE enemy, China.
US is simply controlling the resource; the rest is window dressing to let Canadians believe they rule their land…
The fact that environmentalists will eventually block the Gateway project using courts, NIMBY, scare tactics and self-righteous condemnation doesn’t mean that Obama hasn’t blown it both economically and environmentally. Let the oil trains and the off shore drillings in Cuba begin.
American and Canadian environmental groups give paola to individual native leaders in Canada. The politically passive majority on the Rez never sees a penny. That could explain how the good economic benifits from resourse developement on native land is passed over time after time again. It will be intereasting to see how this plays out now that BC indians have title to all land outside the rez as opposed to the requirment before of developers and government to only “consult” . That desion came down on thursday. BC natives have claimed 140% of BC.
Yikes.
Exactly. Mother Nature’s Oil Spill. No different than what BP did to the beaches of Florida, only massively bigger.
To see before-and-after pictures of Alberta’s land reclamation laws in effect; http://www.earthmagazine.org/article/reclaiming-albertas-oil-sands-mines
Some of the oil companies have to stay, contractually, at least 15 years after a ‘mine’ is exhausted (meaning all the oil is extracted by steam from the charcoal-colored sand) to ensure that the land reclamation plan they drew up and that was approved by the Province before they started is completed properly. Under penally of fine and possible jail.
As a Canadian and someone who lives in BC I’m all for the pipeline coming through BC. Bring it on! It makes economic sense to keep the abundant resources of The Great White North flowing to those that want to buy it.
Allan M.R. MacRae on June 29, 2014 at 7:50 am
Allan I live near that area and having an oil pipeline from Terrace to Prince Rupert would be a disaster in waiting because of the topography. This is a steep mountainous area which is prone to slides with a major river. Have a look.
There is a natural gas pipeline running down this valley and has been damaged numerous times by slides.
The Douglas channel out of Kitimat has had heavy shipping for decade’s with no incidents that I can find.
The channels navigation aides are being upgraded along with real-time traffic control. The tankers double hulled, inspected, two pilots and escorted by two tugs, one tethered.
Government control from the cradle-to-grave and air we breathe
Rud Istvan says:
June 29, 2014 at 7:38 am
Why are the reserves growing?
http://statshb.capp.ca/SHB/Sheet.asp?SectionID=2&SheetID=318
Incidentally, don’t they have to dilute the bitumen to put it in pipelines; hence: dilbit?
The official numbers for Alberta’s petroleum endowment are lined below
ST98: Alberta’s Energy Reserves & Supply/Demand Outlook
http://www.aer.ca/data-and-publications/statistical-reports/st98
From page 19 of the 2014 ST98 report
Table 1: Reserves, Resources and Production Summary
For crude Bitumen (Billion Barrels)
Initial in-place resources 1845
Initial Established reserves 177
Cumulative Production 9.6
Remaining Est Reserves 167
Annual Production 0.761
Ultimate Potential
(Recoverable) 315
Northern Gateway will not happen for many many years. Liberal’s and NDP have stated they will can it, and the Natives in Canada just won a Supreme Court of Canada ruling basically giving the say whether anything happens on their land, and they will say no. Keystone will be built long before Northern Gateway.
emsnews and the other ignorati pretending that Keystone would not have benefited the American market are not only uninformed, they insult those whom they try to persuade by assuming they are as stupid.
America is being damaged, in a long term manner, by someone whose world views were shaped by reactionary hatred of the American culture and our national interests and a complete ignorance of how science and industry works.
The ongoing confusion at all levels between oil and tar is amazing, walk out to your car, open your hood and pull out the dipstick, the stuff that drips off is oil, the driveway it falls on is tar (asphalt=tar plus sand and gravel). If you can not tell your dipstick from your driveway, you should refrain from pointing it out to others. Tar is a man made byproduct of coal and oil processing, once all the lighter distillates are gone, no one would put up with northern Alberta’s brutal winters or fly infested summers to get tar.
It’s not a done deal yet.
“Environmentalists and Canada’s native tribes could delay approval all the way to the Supreme Court, and the tribes still hold title to some of the land the pipeline would cross. That means the government will have to move with extreme sensitivity.
Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs Grand Chief Stewart Phillip said aboriginal people will blockade any attempt by Enbridge to start work.”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/canada-oks-oil-pipeline-pacific-coast
It could be just as bad up north as it is here. Maybe more so because of the native tribes. Time will tell.
Doesn’t change a thing. News flash boys and girls; the damned oil is already flowing, and being transported by rail. And since those tank cars are all brand spankin’ shiny and new, we can expect that any pipeline construction, Gateway or Keystone, will be delayed until these tank cars are worn out, or have been in service long enough to have produced a decent return on some filthy stinkin’ rich guy’s investment.
To get that oil to Asia, it will have to go in tankers. All the pipeline fear mongers ought to think about that……hmm I remember more oil spills from tankers than pipelines.