Any Canadians here old enough to remember the early 80s coal deal? Anyway, we have apartment blocks on the north/west coast, turning the pipeline 90 degrees would be just great for us.
A nice article from the Globe and Mail yesterday explains why current refineries in Oklahoma would be against the pipeline: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...-canadian-producers-big-bucks/article2230517/ ... While refineries in Cushing pay WTI prices for their feedstock, refineries 640 kilometres south pay about $20 per barrel more for Light Louisiana Sweet, which like all fuels heading into U.S. ports, trades at or near the Brent-based world oil price. Incidentally, those prices have been in triple-digit territory since the beginning of the year. That is a great deal for the refineries in Cushing that get a crack spread of around $25, compared to a spread of about $5 for those that have to pay Brent-type world oil prices for their fuel. But for Canadaâs oil patch, which exports more than two million barrels a day to the U.S., the $20 or more price discount that has prevailed all year amounts to $40 million a day, or about one and a quarter billion dollars a month in lost petro-dollars. I bet shareholders of Canadian oil producers, not to mention provincial and federal governments in Canada, would like to see their share of the rich crack spread that mid-western refineries are getting on their Canadian feedstock. Without pipeline access to the Gulf, or to the Pacific to supply Chinese customers, Canadian oil producers get what Mid-west refineries will give them. And thatâs a huge discount to what the rest of the world will pay, including U.S. refineries along the Pacific, Atlantic or Gulf coasts. It doesnât make sense for Canadian oil to flow to the market that values it the least. If Canadian oil exporters canât get to world prices through the proposed Keystone XL pipeline to the Gulf of Mexico, they must find another route for their oil to flow.
So after bitching about Obama, it turns out its Red State "capitalists" opposed to the pipeline because they don't want to compete. How...fitting.
Kazz, I'll write more later. Some quick short-hand. +40 million per day = 1% GDP per year. Significant.
Yes well no country should rely on the longevity of its politicians. You end up with worse corruption. Restrained under the law and keep them moving. They are as good as cattle and as bad as vultures. If Canada wants something let them do it, they want US port? Well make a deal or get the ice breakers out.
Just to bring this discussion back to reality: The U.S. is already Canada's biggest customer for petroleum, and Canada supplies more oil to the U.S. than any other country, including Saudi Arabia. The U.S. will always be Canada's preferred customer, and Canadian oil will always be cheaper for the U.S. to buy than for China because of transportation costs.
There is no evidence to support this, and quite a bit that suggests otherwise. Many of the worst-corrupted political regimes have been very short-lived.
That's true in a straight dollar-amount sense. The Chinese, however, are paying for it with OPM, which is usually cheaper than running more deficits.
Absolutely. So it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to dawdle on this issue. Sure, American midwest refineries make less profit, but surely this could be made up elsewhere if the oil was shipped to Texas.