[Bommer]

Oil goes to where it is easiest and cheapest to ship to and to refine.

If that were true then why do we not get 100% of our oil from Canada? Your saying that the 40% we get from the Saudis from tankers sailing across the ocean is easier and cheaperthan getting it from Manatoba & Saskatchewan?

[elfman2]

“If that were true then why do we not get 100% of our oil from Canada? Your saying that the 40% we get from the Saudis”

What are you trying to suggest? How can we get 100% from one place and 40% from another? We don’t get 100% from anywhere. What are you asking anyway? That makes no sense.

[Polybius]

Oil goes to where it is easiest and cheapest to ship to and to refine.

If that were true then why do we not get 100% of our oil from Canada? Your saying that the 40% we get from the Saudis from tankers sailing across the ocean is easier and cheaperthan getting it from Manatoba & Saskatchewan?

You're a landlubber, aren't ya matey? :-)

That is EXACTLY what I am saying.

Why do you think the Eire Canal was built thorough perfectly good solid ground?

Because water makes the transportation of massive amounts of freight so easy that a pair of mules can effortlessly move tons of floating freight that they could not budge if it were on a wheeled vehicle.

The total U.S. oil consumption is 20.8 million bbl/day (2005 est.)

The entire Canadian crude oil pipeline capacity is 2.65 million barrels of crude oil per day

How are you going to transport the remaining 18 million barrels of crude oil per day from Manitoba & Saskatchewan to the Gulf Coast refineries?

Drive it down Interstate 25 in mile long convoys of 7,000 gallon tanker trucks?

This is an oil tanker.

Each one can carry two million barrels of oil. That equals 84 million gallons of oil. That represents the carrying capacity of 12,000 tanker trucks.

In other words, the entire Canadian pipeline system can only carry 66% of the volume of oil per day that only two of these tankers can hold.

That is how the U.S. must deliver the other 18 million barrels of oil it consumes to U.S. refineries.

Is it easier and safer to sail from Saudi Arabia to the Gulf Coast than to make the treacherous "around the Horn" voyage from Alaska to the Gulf Coast refineries?

Yes.

You want to physically move 20 million barrels of oil per day from Manitoba & Saskatchewan to the Gulf Coast refineries?

Well, as they say in Maine, "Sorry. You can't get there from here."

[PugetSoundSoldier]

Your saying that the 40% we get from the Saudis from tankers sailing across the ocean is easier and cheaperthan getting it from Manatoba & Saskatchewan?

Two facts:

1. We don't get 40% of our oil from Saudi Arabia; in fact, we get 16% of our total crude imports from the entire Persian Gulf, including the 11% from Saudi Arabia.

2. The cost to pump a barrel of oil in the Persian Gulf is extremely low - like around $2 per barrel in Saudi Arabia, meaning they can sell that crude at $80+ per barrel and make a ton of cash (note that the price you see - that $130 per barrel - is for light, sweet crude delivered to Oklahoma).

3. The cost to pump a barrel of oil from the oil sands in Canada is around $35 per barrel, about 17 times as much as Saudi Arabia. So that barrel actually costs more to purchase and deliver than the SA product.

Yes, facts are inconvenient things sometimes...