I still do not understand why, when all those oil companies spent multiple billions to build oil sand processing facilities in Fort McMoney (Fort McMurray), they did not build a massive refinery. Canada should not be shipping heavy oil to the US or overseas. Why not keep the ‘value added’ jobs here, shipping finished product outside the country?
IF a refinery had been built along with the bitumen processing facilities, Alberta (and Canada) would not be facing as severe a recession as we now face. We currently produce approximate 4 million BOEPD yet only have capacity to refine 2 million BOEPD. Over the next 25 years, production is expected to rise to 7 million BOEPD.
Of course the ‘greenies’ and ‘liberals’ aka ‘progressives’ aka ‘commies’ choose to destroy our economy, so tie up ANY refineries in tons of ‘red tape’, making the building of such facilities prohibitively expensive.
Do you think they would have an easier time building multiple refined products pipelines after the ongoing problem with Keystone XL?
Another problem is to be economically competitive with the US modern refineries, you have to recognize more than oil goes in and more than gasoline and diesel goes out.
Many major refineries in the Gulf Coast Region get hydrogen from the area hydrogen pipeline that does not exist. We have more petrochem plants in the area than we do refineries. And we have refineries that want their heavy oil.
Since we already refine more than we use, adding additional refinery capacity has to be competitive with shipping product internationally. Right this moment margins are high, but over the life of a refinery they are typically quite tight.