Gasoline would need to be delivered to the consumer in, say, Seattle, Denver and Minneapolis, versus bitumen, which currently needs to be delivered to the Gulf refineries. Gasoline transportation issues and costs should be a fraction of bitumen's.
Am I understanding this correctly?
So you would shut down other US refineries to build 500,000 BOD refinery up North?
The US does not have a shortage of refineries, but rather a shortage of feedstock to them.
A refinery produces more than gasoline. The chemical feedstock market is also on the Gulf Coast.
Also byproduct is quite a bit of sulfur. Also the refinery is going to produce petroleum coke or residual oil. There isn’t much market for those on the Canadian / North Dakota border. And those are not moving by pipeline.