Posted on 08/31/2009 4:16:30 PM PDT by Clive
OTTAWA -- To lift a quip from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Arctic sovereignty policy and apply it to the American view of Alberta’s oilsands: use it or lose it.
The Chinese government pushed its shovel deep into Canada’s energy motherlode on Monday when it announced a $2-billion stake in a five-billion-barrel reserve of “dirty oil” that Americans increasingly find unworthy of fuelling their vehicles.
The 60% claim by PetroChina in two projects owned by Athabasca Oil Sands Corp., while small compared to the great gobs of capital pouring into oilsands expansion and extraction, are the global giant’s largest investment in Canadian energy yet.
And China usually buys into product it aims to consume.
Sources in Washington predict politicians there will not be pleased at having a massive supply of secure energy on their northern doorstep slipping under Chinese ownership.
Well, too bad.
Under the greenish Obama administration, “oilsands” is becoming a dirty word as Americans take on the delusional swagger that they can be picky about which oil is good enough to buy in a recession when supply is temporarily ahead of demand.
Canadian oilsands exports are increasingly encountering U.S. political resistance at federal, state and municipal levels as low-carbon fuel standards move through the legislative process to erect barricades against an energy with an extraction problem.
But it is delusional because there is no post-refining difference between conventional and non-conventional oil and banning it in one state or city merely moves it to another, with no corresponding reduction in carbon emissions.
Yet the difference between the American and Chinese views of oilsand imports suggests that Canada is nearing a moment of decision.
(Excerpt) Read more at network.nationalpost.com ...
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umm, errr, uhhh, ahhh it’s just our stupid Joker who doesn’t want America to have oil.
You would think after 40 years of the same ruse more American people would catch on.
The Obama cabal will likely consider it a sign from their yet-to-be-defined gods and an aid in their efforts to make change upon this nation.
Yet the difference between the American and Chinese views of oilsand imports suggests that Canada is nearing a moment of decision.It can be forever held captive to the whims of U.S. refineries, which import 60% of oilsand production or about 780,000 barrels a day. Or it can create a battle of demand between the two energy-consuming superpowers that will soon find there is not enough oil to satisfy their combined thirsts.
That will require Canada, whose pipelines now head only north and south, to punch a hole in the Rockies and open up a crude flow to the west coast, from where oil could head overseas.
Environment Minister Jim Prentice is no fan of a single-buyer market for exported bitumen, which actually sells at a discount in the U.S. compared to Middle East oil despite coming from a friendly neighbour. He’d like competition injected into the system.
“Doesn’t it help Canada’s exporter to have alternative market choices?,” he noted in a recent interview. “We need transportation mechanisms to ship it to the West Coast. Refineries in the U.S. have limited capacity and we don’t have anywhere else to sell it. Having the capacity to ship it to the West Coast would keep everybody honest, so I think it’s good policy.”
As I pointed out today on another thread, CN has developed a method of unit train transportation of crude to any place that trains will go, including Arctic, Hudson's Bay. Great Lakes and West Coast ports.
See this hyperlink:
This Regime would probably pay the Chinese 2 billion to dig the sands.
The Obamathug administration is going to make sure we lose a good thing on our doorstep, from our good neighbor, to our Chicom foes.
I don't blame Canada for finding a good, reliable customer. It's too bad we aren't one. My dad spent a lot of time in the oil sands commissioning purchased US equipment. I'd hate to see it benefit the Chicoms while we "stupidly" allow it to happen.
JOker inspired communism on the march.....
What is it about the article or the facts quoted therein that you are having trouble believing?
Do you doubt Chinese interest in Canadian oil?
Do you doubt recent anti oil sands sentiment in the US, especially among Obama's core support?
As to Chinese interest in Canadian oil, see this article:
Obama is acting as though there will be kumbaya in our time.
And it’s all because of the Globull Warming.
Banning oil refined from oilsands crude makes as much sense as banning drinking water drawn from a lake instead of a well.
Liberalism is a mental disease.
Don Martin is an established, well known, columnist.
It is not a "blog" even though the National Post amd CanWest News Service invites comments in the electonic sites of its various newspapers
Read the article again. Read the entire linked article, not the abridgement. Then criticize the article on its merits.
What citation of facts do you question?
Has China bought into Athabascan oilsands? They have.
Or that the Obama administration (and blue states and cities) are discouraging the import of crude from the oilsands? They are.
Or that there is no difference between petroleum products refined from conventional crude and oilsands crude? There isn't. Just as there is no difference between drinking water processed from lake water and well water.
Or that Canadian producers and the provincial government are more than a little pissed by the developing American policy? They have every reason to be.
How tight is you tin foil hat, conspiracy theories are what they are.
Its a $8 billion dollar project slated for 5 years. It will put 1500 men to work, during that time.
Whiting is 20 minutes from downtown Chicago. Chicago is VERY union. Chicago pipefitters union, who would man the job, are the largest pipefitting local in the country.
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