Frustrations in Western Canada raised by oil refinery research report
The Canadian oil industry is bleeding from loss of revenues simply because we have only one country, one market, to sell into.
Our American friends and only export customer pay between $5 a barrel and $15 a barrel less than the going price. Currently that gap is $25 a barrel. Estimates in a 2013 CIBC study indicate an annual loss of oil revenue between $15 billion and $25 billion a year. Another analysis puts the loss at $117 billion over the last six years, or $19.5 billion annually.
Three pipeline projects providing access to other markets have been planned. One across Northern B.C. is dead. A second project, the conversion of an existing natural gas line to the East Coast, has been shut down as too expensive
A third plan, twinning of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline to the Vancouver area, is in hearings and faces judicial delay.
Tax revenues from multiple income generated out of the lost revenues would be enough to make a large dent in federal, Alberta and Saskatchewan deficits. More ammunition to back up the need for an eastern pipeline has come in a study from the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI).
CERI did an analysis of what would happen if a pipeline brought oil to the eight refineries in Quebec and Ontario and refineries in each of New Brunswick and Newfoundland.
The outcome: Just making Western Canadian oil more accessible to these refineries would save them $317 million annually.
The pipeline is much safer than transport by railway. The Lac Megantic disaster proved that, as do the regular U.S. rail spills which are no longer reported in the media because they are so common. Environmental supporters claim the pipeline would contribute to the use of oil and increase greenhouse gas emissions.
The CERI analysis found making Western Canadian oil more accessible to eastern refineries would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by two million tonnes a year — about a six per cent reduction.
The logic is indisputable.
Our country and others are going to use oil. Access for western oil to eastern refineries will reduce their costs and make a significant dent into greenhouse gas emissions.
And the pipeline would improve tax revenues and lessen dependence on unpredictable U.S. markets
The question arises: What are we waiting for?
The politics of keeping eastern supporters in the Liberaal Party fold holds up the process.
The longer the wait for improved access by western oil to alternate markets the greater frustration builds. Does Western Canada have to start a separatist movement to get action on this festering issue?