The BC position missed the most important point . . .

6. Build the refineries in Canada for the protection of the environment and jobs. Outlaw the export of raw natural resources so politicians aren’t tempted to deal our heritage away.

Agreed to whelen’s proposal as a must do. We aren’t preventing Alberta from shipping their oil to foreign markets. What we are saying is that oil must be cleaned first to prevent the destruction of the BC environment. That is the bottom line.

I would not say it was the most important, however, it is a point which the country needs to consider as well as the province. The “jobs” are not only in Alberta and BC, but the service industry can be anywhere in the Country, the USA and the rest of the world for the various technologies required to transport the product.

I am not sure whether the review is limited to environmental aspects, but I think it is. If so, then, in order to measure risk, one ought to include a cost benefit analysis which includes worse case scenarios of spills on land and water, including loss of opportunity (jobs) due to the down time of an industry in a particular area (impact on tourism, fisheries, etc.)

Finally, I think there needs to be another consideration that is economic based. More than the risk should be covered by a financial gain. Covering the cost of a risk is not a financial gain; that is an insurance which should be put away into a trust for that purpose should it be required. If, after 30 years the line is shut down, or is used to carry a less risky product such as water (now there is another topic) then any money left in the trust can revert back to general revenues as a legacy to the province from the pipeline activity. In fact, there could be a sharing agreement with Alberta, depending on how much more than that BC will receive from having the pipeline running across its lands.

Which then goes to the true economic benefit. If a plant, rather than a pipeline were built here, there would not only be jobs produced here, but also taxes would have to be paid to municipalities, regional districts as well as business taxes for operating a business in the Province. That is the least amount of money that needs to be collected in one fashion or another by the various communities along the route as well as the province. Beyond that, there is an amount that reflects a fair market value of providing the route to the west rather than choosing a route to the south or the east. That could be accomplished as a percentage of goods sold paid on a quarterly basis, or some similar method.

So, let us see how well this province does with this venture on our territory. At the moment it does not look promising from Harper’s stance and Alberta’s stance. But, such is the process of negotiating. :-)

When Alaskan oil was developed, it was what the state and the feds had to do to gain the social licence from the residents of Alaska.

It wasn’t acceptable to those residents that the financial proceeds went simply into general revenues and hence they have a system which pays a dividend annually to each person directly. Why do we not deserve the same?

It might sound like a trivial detail but this pipeline that crosses our entire province is an expensive obstacle to other industries who must cross it. Every new forestry road and mining road or whatever else is needed to be built will involve addition expense to that activity.
Having worked around pipelines from time to time and noticing the costs can be 100 grand or more for each crossing, it is an issue to this province and its industries. If it is a forestry road then the costs of the crossing are deducted from the stumpage paid to the province.

Either way BC and its other industries loose UNLESS our province were to negotiate that approval is contingent upon Enbridge being responsible for facilitating this infrastructure at their expense.

Very good points. If, after all those considerations are met, perhaps Enbridge might rethink the profitability of the whole project. If they ended up taking it somewhere else it wouldn’t hurt my feelings at all.
I think the land it has to cross is too beautiful, rugged and valuable to risk it and the ocean channel too valuable as well to too many people.

“Why do we not deserve the same?”

If the “we” is BC, it is simple. It is not our oil.

In the case of Alberta, the province does receive a royalty. Whether that is enough or not, that is another story. In their case, it is seen in such things as no sales tax, lower tax on gasoline, better roads, better maintained infrastructure, etc.

In other words, one could look at it this way. Instead of giving the money to the people to vacation in BC and buy vacation property in BC, and go to Mexico, etc. they are making sure more money is spent in Alberta and benefits the communities as well as lowering taxes to individuals.

We have to remember that once the money runs out, the people will no longer get any, but the facilities the state/province builds will be there for much longer as long as they maintain them.

I think we are in the infancy of understanding what the true costs of things are and actually knowing what/who subsidized what/whom.

This simply shows it up one more time and companies such as Enbridge take advantage of it.

“Build the refineries in Canada for the protection of the environment and jobs.”

Nice thought.

Who is supposed to build this multi-billion dollar refinery?

I would add to this issue of pipeline crossings that should an accident occur from a third party who is crossing this pipeline then the legal liability questions begin.
Who is responsible? or who must pay if it is a substandard crossing? or an independent trucker who is at fault? or Enbridge for approving it? or government for not overseeing compliance to safety measures?
Just imagine dozens of temporary crossings needed to be built each year and then removed each year and all this activity represents a risk to rupturing and causing a spill. This risk will be legally offloaded to small contractors who will have to pay more for liability insurance and it will be AT BEST that amount of insurance that will be available for a cleanup.
Having this pipeline cross our province should not be done as a costly and risky detriment to all our other industries.

“Who is supposed to build this multi-billion dollar refinery?”

I seem to remember that a fellow named Black recently suggested that if refineries are built in B.C. (close to Kitimat) it would take him about a week to raise the money from international investors.

Billions. No problem.

Some construction outfits would get the contract to physically make it happen. It still wouldn’t eliminate the pipeline, so it was a bit of a useless scheme.

I think we are in the infancy of understanding what the true costs of things are and actually knowing what/who subsidized what/whom.

I have to agree with Gus.
This project is moving to quickly for the likes of B.C. and all it’s risks and opportunities.
Like the Dragon’s would say “I’m out”.

PG: “I seem to remember that a fellow named Black recently suggested that if refineries are built in B.C. (close to Kitimat) it would take him about a week to raise the money from international investors.”

I seem to remember the naysayers poo-poo’ing the idea because they didn’t like the location, even though if one to be built it would make the most sense.

The dividend that each citizen of Alaska receives is paid from the investment of oil royalties paid the State, not from the revenue received directly from the oil companies. This way the Alaskans are following the cardinal rule of all prudent investment, “protect the Capital”, and only “live off the Income.” We could, and should, do the same thing with our resource revenues. Rather than letting politicians spend (waste) them for us.

“Who is supposed to build this multi-billion dollar refinery?”

How about the Chinese. Call it foreign aid, call it investment, I really do not car. They do it in Africa. Are we chump change? Why should we subsidize them even more. We are aleady buying their goods to keep their people employed. They can at least meet us half way ….

“a fellow named Black recently suggested that if refineries are built in B.C. (close to Kitimat) it would take him about a week to raise the money from international investors.”

Words .. words …. let him prove it.

“I seem to remember the naysayers poo-poo’ing the idea because they didn’t like the location, even though if one to be built it would make the most sense.

First of all …. let’s deal with this namecalling affliction you have…

So tell me, what makes a naysayer better or worse than a yeasayer?
—————————————
Now to the heart of the matter.

There are several components to shipping oil overseas. The important ones in the transportation component is the combination of product and spipping location.

The thinking is that if a refinery is built in BC, it should receive the synthetic crude which has been improved at source in Alberta. That would supposedly ease cleanup in the case of a spill. I do not know if that is true. I will simply go with what others say for now.

Putting the secondary plant in BC would spread the “wealth” from the economic hot spot in Alberta to a relatively depressed area of BC. That may also reduce the cost of domestic production since the wages may end up being slightly lower.

gus: “How about the Chinese. Call it foreign aid, call it investment, I really do not car. They do it in Africa.”

That’s a slightly different jurisdiction (to put it mildly) in terms of economic climate, labour costs, regulatory oversight, etc. At least compare apples to apples. In any case, if I understand, the naysayers say they do want a refinery to be built (by someone), but only if it is to their specifications and location. I’m not sure how realistic that is.

gus: “First of all …. let’s deal with this namecalling affliction you have…”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been called more names on here than just about anybody. Who cares, move on.

I agree with BC racer in that our provincial government is doing a lot of looking tough when in fact they are prepared to approve this pipeline on what ever terms the feds and Alberta want.

The public of BC therefore have two separate politically charged governments to deal with on this issue as to what BC asks for economically and environmentally. We know what Alberta and the feds want and that they are prepared to ram this through. We should not assume from the provincial government grandstanding that we will get anything from this. It looks good but it is nothing but a publicity campaign attached to an upcoming election.

Alberta and the feds are proceeding as independently deciding the future of Canada’s energy security and supply with the absence of a national energy policy that should be in place before decisions such as this are made. They know it and they know that if the facts of how this will affect our entire country’s future be known that everyone but Alberta would reject the rapid depletion of a critically important and non renewable asset that this country needs for its future.

If you don’t understand the oil industry, you cannot comment on it. Spouting erroneous information provided by ecoterrorist groups is NOT an intelligent conversation. The issues are not nearly as simplistic as most posters think. Take time to educate yourself or stick to talking about logging/growing dope/welfare – whatever you know.

“If you don’t understand the oil industry, you cannot comment on it.”

Who says?

If the world were run by the so-called experts in every field, would we have a perfect world.

Take an issue, and one can easily find 2, 3, 4 and more experts who will argue the opposite points of view based on factual information.

In the end, it all boils down to opinion.

In fact, those people who actually have the final say are not experts in the field at issue at all. If there is any expertise they have it is being able to listen to several points of view and the associated facts and make an administrative decision, at which time the experts who lost will often be of the opinion that the sky will be falling shortly.

Odly enough, this blog is called OPINION 250, not EXPERT 250. ;-)

If it were EXPERT 250, the editors would have to pay a heck of a lot of money for expert recommendations …

“The issues are not nearly as simplistic as most posters think”

So, Gamblor, I do not know if you are an expert with resepct to the oil industry.

Since we are writing about building a refinery in BC, what do you think of the idea.

Do you think we should be following the USA lead and let the Indians build new refineries because they can build them more cheaply and the USA simply buy the refined prodcuts from them? Sort of like the steel plants in the east; let them die and buy the steel from Korea or whoever can make it more cheaply. Canada followed suit with that, as did some other steel manufacturing countries.

Is that where all industry and manufacturing going to end up?

On does not have to be an oil expert to have those kind of discussiion. It is an economic discussion, it is a community discussion regarding the types of jobs which will be left over that will pay enough to live the life we expect to live, the lifestyles, the selling of assets which will grow faster in value than almost any other commodity over the short and intermediate term.

The oil experts can go pound sand. There is a totally different kind of expertise needed, much of which is actually intuitive becuase it is nothing that can be learened. Much of it does not follow any scientific principles.

BCrs aren’t against Alberta making a lot of money. BCrs just want the oil cleaned before it is shipped accross our delicate ecosystems as there is many jobs that are going on in our province and the water is vital to sustain life. It seems that Enbridge can’t hear what I’ve just said and China is going to loose some added value to the product that they buy from Canada. I am no oil man but I would say that that is the cost of doing buisness.

Well,…I, middle finger, am going to build a 38,000 seat baseball stadium in Vanderhoof. Someday the American league is going to expand by two teams and someday Vanderhoof’s population will be a million and a half. I’m not going to use my own money though, in a week my buddies on Wall St. will raise the capital for my idea.

I have always wondered what an opeum buzz is like.

Does anyone know how much China stands to loose by having Canadians refine the oil before it is shipped? At any rate that is the price of doing buisness in BC.

Does anyone know how much China stands to loose by having Canadians refine the oil before it is shipped? At any rate that is the price of doing buisness in BC.

The refinery in Kitimat doesn’t solve the issue that this pipeline if built will cross a 1000 different streams! The answer is still no.

This refinery debate is a bit of a distraction and one that deflates the validity of the environmental protection argument. Even if the refinery were to be located where the NGP enters this province the issue remains of how to transport all those different products, oils,diesel,gasoline,etc accross the province. If the refinery were built near the coast then the bitumen would have travelled accross BC anyways and then the issue is how to transport numerous different products from there. What people in BC seem to want is a benefit from this pipeline that warrants the risk and that can be many things besides a refinery.
The people of BC should ask for a dividend to be paid directly to the people of BC similar to Alaskans are paid for this social licence to build this pipeline rather than wanting to refine all this oil. It doesn’t matter if its “our oil” gus, it matters it is our province that this pipeline is crossing and our waters that it is tankered through.

The only middle ground that makes any sense to me is that a refinery be built or expanded in the PG area of which could displace the products which are refined in Alberta and shipped to BC.

If I am correct on this, there is no merit to the Chinese to have this refined before it enters thier country. It is not going to be open market oil or products from oil that is for sale to anyone else.

^bingo.

I’m not saying you need to be an “expert”. Many so called “oil experts” at places like the Pembina Institute or Sierra Club are responsible for many of the oil myths going around. All I’m saying is don’t be like gus – a guy who just admitted he has no idea what he’s talking about but has somehow made up his mind on what provincial and national energy policy should be. That makes no sense. You don’t need to be an “expert” but you need to do some research and that includes listening to BOTH sides, not just one.

The pipeline application is no different and in most ways better than any existing pipeline so the review is just a formality on the pipeline itself. Is Canadian energy policy perfect? no. Should we be asking questions and making sure our resources are utilized in our best interests? of course. But there is nothing currently in oilsands development or the Enbridge pipeline proposal that is any different from any other industrial development in Canada right now. period. Like I already said, Canadian oil policy is not on trial at the JRP hearings. BC is being fairly compensated for its benign role in the project. Perhaps BC should learn to rely on its own economic development and fiscal management instead of trying to extort money from other provinces to make a buck, it makes us look cheap. and stupid. educate yourself.

Prime minister Harper is very typical of a politician. He would take the short cut rather than seeing to it that the oil is refined in Canada by Canadians and a pipeline is built accrfoss Canada to ensure Canadas oil supply is secure. Mr. Harper can put a cap on how much Canadians pay for their fuel thus negating the greed of oil companies.

#1 The Northern Gateway Pipeline Incorporated should hold a $20 billion dollar insurance policy against a pipeline spill or tanker accident. (if they can’t afford the insurance than the project is not financially viable, the people of BC should not be the one to subsidize this)

#2 Before anything proceeds research should be done into the spill effects of dilbit and clean up contingencies. (to date this research has never been done and Enbridges own proposal uses synthetic crude as their example)

#3 They should be able to show how cleanup could be done in the worst of the winter weather conditions including 50 below frozen over rivers and hurricane force winds on the waters.

#4 Full clean up response units should if it was approved be on standby in BC and fully equipped for both maritime as well as winter condition clean up response. (closing the BC response units by the Harper government shows this is not even on their radar)

#4 If PG’s water supply is threatened then they should also be able to show they could supply the city with water in the event of a spill on the Stuart. (PG council has failed their fiduciary duty by ignoring the Enbridge hearings)

#5 Royalties should go to the people of BC and not to government to spend on buying votes.

#5 Canada should have a domestic price for our energy resources with an export tax bringing it up to world market prices and the difference should be used to fund a renewable energy economy.

#6 No oil or gas should leave the country unless all domestic needs are first met, meaning we should have a pipeline to Atlantic Canada prior to an export terminal on the west coast.

#7 Refining should be done in Canada to Canadian environmental standards paying Canadian wages. (it should be illegal to off shore pollution by using lax environmental standards with Canadian raw resources, when we all share the same ocean and atmosphere)

In my opinion those should be clear red lines that should be the guide to any proposal such as this.

I would also add that the David Black refinery proposal is akin to the Clint Eastwood chair talking incident and should receive the same consideration.

Also of note was how they shut down the hearings as soon as the topic of insurance came up… an industry that is made on the public insuring their projects and thus the talk of social license. A license to not carry proper insurance and factor that into the true costs of the project.

If they do consider the insurance aspect it would seriously jeopardize the way the oil and gas sector does business in Canada. They will avoid that line of reasoning like its the plague. It shows the true colors of the review panel IMO.