Refinery Plan Worth Pursuing Says Report
Tuesday, March 19, 2013 @ 10:05 AM
Victoria, B .C. – The independent review of a proposal to build a refinery in Kitimat to process oil sands oil, says the project is worth pursuing.
In its report, Navigant Consulting, which conducted the review, says B.C. businessman David Black’s proposed refinery project (Kitimat Clean Fuels) has economic merit and should be considered seriously by the government “Such a refinery would provide incremental long term economic benefits to the region, compared to export of unfinished feedstock” says the report. It also says if such a project were managed properly, the refinery would “generate sustainable margins that otherwise would be lost to Asian purchasers of Canada’s oil sands production.”
The report recommends the Province select a design for Kitimat “ that would make it capable of manufacturing fuel products for a myriad of countries around the Pacific Rim”.
According to Navigant, the estimated cost of the project ($13 billion dollars) seemed a little on the high side. But the authors admit their comparison refinery was easier to access, was built in 2006, was not dealing with oil sands products and did not require a new power plant to be built, so those are factors which would drive the price higher than Navigant’s estimate of $7 billion.
But before there is a refinery, the matter of getting the oil to the coast has to be resolved. The Enbridge Pipeline project has yet to be approved, and Premier Christy Clark’s team holds fast to its five conditions that must be met before B.C. would allow that project to move forward.
- Successful completion of the environmental review process.
- World-leading marine oil spill response, prevention and recovery systems for B.C.’s coastline and ocean to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy oil pipelines and shipments;
- World-leading practices for land oil spill prevention, response and recovery systems to manage and mitigate the risks and costs of heavy oil pipelines;
- Legal requirements regarding Aboriginal and treaty rights are addressed, and First Nations are provided with the opportunities, information and resources necessary to participate in and benefit from a heavy-oil project; and
- British Columbia receives a fair share of the fiscal and economic benefits of a proposed heavy oil project
Comments
On May 14th, my vote will be for the party that will allow projects like this to proceed. I do have environmental concerns that I believe modern science and technology should be able to address.
This idea of Mr. Blacks’ seems like a good one but;
– still requires the pipeline; to me as much long term risk as the shipping
– still has tankers traversing the waters of Douglas Channel and beyond; albeit with products that are easier to clean up in the event of a crash.
What happened to the concept that foreign markets were not interested in importing refined petroleum products?
Anyway, this idea is more palatable than exporting yet more raw resource materials.
metalman.
“Worth Pursuing”, for whom and to what benefit?
This is still the big money in cahoots with senior government for the benefit of those players.
Trickle down does not effect the rest of us except we get stuck with clean up costs added to our taxes.
It’s like a bad divorce, one gets the house, the car, and the kids with support payment, the other party gets the bills.
There will NOT be a refinery built in Kitimat. This is all political hogwash.
If you built a refinery common sense would dictate that you build it at the well head, and then you have many options for distribution. At Kitimat you have only one option.
Further all these announcements are just before an election. Duhhhhhhhhh.
Further. Its the oil companies that will determine where the refineries are built. Not the politicians or Mr. Black.
Remember prior to an election a number of years ago the socreds announced that Wenner Gren, would develop the Rocky Mountain Trench, and build a mono rail to Alaska, etc; etc;.
After the election it was never mentioned again.
Time to wake up and smell the roses.
Palopu, you seem to be an expert. On what I’m not sure. If common sense dictates that refineries are built at the well head then why is this never done?
I’m no expert like you but from what I see most refineries are built near the end consumer or export point. For example; Prince George has a refinery for it’s local fuel use.
I gather from seeing this, that it’s easier to transport crude oil to distant refineries for local distribution. Than it would be to refine the products at the origin and distribute products greater distance.
The reason its built on the coast and not in Ft Mac is its cheaper to build it there. To ship all the huge parts into alberta everything has to be broken down more and then built. If its on the coast, the parts can be built all over the world. Take them off the ship, put them together and its alot cheaper in the long run. Do i think it will be built?
Nope.
Canadian Oil Refineries.
Nfld Lab. 1. 115000 Bls per day
NS 1 89000 Bbls day
NB 1 300,000 Bbls day
Que 3 566000 Bbls day total
Ont 4 384000 Bbls day Total
Sask 1 145000 Bbls day
AB 3 422000 Bbls day Total
BC 2 64000 Bbls day Total.
In addition Sask. has 2 upgraders 100,000 bbls day that process bitumen to synthetic crude. Alberta has 5 bitumen upgraders that process in excess of 880,000 bbls of bitumen a day into synthetic crude. 4 are located in Ft McMurray Ab. and One in Edmonton.
The smallest refinery in Canada is in Prince George which refines 12000 bbls per day.
So you can see Canadian refineries are spread all across Canada, and not necessarily at Ports.
If you want to see where the real action is on refineries type List of Oil Refineries in your search engine, and you will get a list of all oil refineries in the world, and their production.
Have a nice day.
This refinery projected cost is about 1/2 of BC’s annual budget. It is Mr. Black’s pipe dream. I am not sure why he is floating it.
“What happened to the concept that foreign markets were not interested in importing refined petroleum products?”
Of course they are not …. until that is the only thing being offered.
“This refinery projected cost is about 1/2 of BC’s annual budget.”
And pales against the purchase of a new fleet of modern jets for the air force.
Speaking of clean up costs; we (the taxpayers ) are on the hook for %500,000,000 in cleanup at the old Giant gold mine in Alberta. All those modern technological methods let the arsenic seep out. That is the governments estimate so you can probably 3x, 4x or more that for the final tally.
Denaljo:
Therein lies the base problem I personally have with these huge industrial developments.
The developer gets the government on side with “incentives” and “subsidies”. Then the operator runs it for profit, which means that they will only do what they have to to stay in business.
Then they close down the depleted resource extraction facility leaving a huge mess with significant environmental contamination.
This happens repeatedly.
An independent review suggests that the refinery proposal has merit, yet our local experts on this site seem to have all the answers. Whenever I look at the postings on this website, I always come away extremely depressed! I get depressed because regardless of the topic at hand, some people here are EXPERTS AT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING!
I feel so insignificant! But I’m sure some of our experts would have a solution to my depression, haha!
Check yourself into the 3rd floor at the hospital. They will get you on the right meds Hart Guy.
Keystone will change everything. Enbridge is going to be tied up for so long they will eventually give up.
This refinery talk is absolute rubbish. Not going to happen. All petroleum harvested in this country should be used to service the Canadian market period. If there is any surplus left over, we can export it refined and at a premium. End of silliness.
Sine Nomine. I agree that the refinery talk is absolute rubbish, however the Canadian market is not big enough to consume all the petroleum products that are produced, hence we have to leave it in the ground or export it. There is no money for multi-national oil companies in leaving this product in the ground, and no jobs.
Speaking from experience NoWay?? Any recommendations as to which room I should try to get, or shall I just ask for the one that you usually get.
Our society demands social services for this and social services for that. We demand health care and education funding. All of this takes money, money that is generated in a large part through our natural resources. I’d be really surprised if Enbridge and Keystone abandon their plans. It might take them longer that what they thought it would take, but sooner or later…..!
Another example of this is the Site C dam proposed for the Peace River. This was initially proposed in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The plans were shelved but are now moving forward again. I don’t really think there is much that will stop it this time around. Sooner or later, the same thing will happen with oil and LNG exports. Whether you agree or not, I suspect that these projects will proceed. It’s just a matter of time.
Why not build it in PG?
1. More labour (no labour in Kitimat or Alberta)
2. More land- flat and cheap.
3. Pipe product to Kitimat or WHY safer through the dangerous part of the pipeline trail.
4.Oh wait we can’t do anything that would enrich corporations cause that would mean we would have to work.
Also while we are at it why don’t we build a steel mill to provide pipe and steel for all our projects.
1.The best steel coal in the world rolls through town everyday.
2.There is iron ore in western canada-not lots but enough
3.the transport savings is huge
4.Lots of space and railways to do it with.
5.In the center of demand.
6.Oh wait this would make us wealthier and we could squander on stupid things like universities, hospitals and sports facilities.
As many will remember, a steel mill was proposed here in the Salmon Valley area in the 1970s under an NDP government.
It was to be a reduction steel mill, which is one which makes sense to be built in BC.
However, a reduction steelmill uses scrap steel as its feedstock. Thus, it makes more sense to build such a mill where the scrap steel is, in a populated area, and ship the coal to it.
So PG is out of the running if that is a primary component of the viability of such a mill. Build it between Chilliwack and Hope on a piece of land which does not remove land from agricultural use.
Or, perhaps, look at the east Kootenays – centered between Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton as the scrap source and users.
If that is not enough of a market, then put it on the coast to take scrap by ship from the west coast and other countries.
It requires a business plan. Who, in BC, looks at such potential investments?
I see Harper is still in the pockets of the big oil companies! Appointing a special envoy to go talk to the Natives about their concerns to do with pipelines. Tax $ being spent to do Enbridges job for them.
I don’t believe that a sane individual would send Dillbit through pipelines to our west coast to ship it through the Douglas Channel as it has been said that there will be leaks in the afore mentioned pipeline. Anyone who has been in that part of BC interior or west coast wouldn’t allow it. With the amount of trust BCers currently have in our politicians and the RCMP as far as that goes have. I wouldn’t bet on it happening.
oldcoot: Enbridge had all kinds of modern monitoring equipment on the Michigan pipeline too. PEOPLE overrode those safety systems. Not once but three times!
The captain of the Exxon Valdez was deemed to be drunk on the job.
While people build systems to warn of problems, other people ignore them.
The route of this pipeline takes it through mountains and rivers. The only way I would be in favour of it was if it was equipped with a “diaper” big enough to do the job if a leak happened. Further, the ships transporting from Kitimat would have to be overseen by an expert group and be in constant contact with departing and arriving ships with all the necessary tugs and oil spill people on standy at various locations all along the route out of our waters.
Even then, mother nature can spoil the best coping efforts man can come up with.
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