Black Working to Gain Support for Pipeline and Refinery Proposal
Thursday, October 3, 2013 @ 2:42 PM
Prince George, B.C. – Media mogul David Black is on a mission. He is working to win support for his proposed pipeline and refinery project and that tour has landed him in Prince George.It is a $25 billion dollar project that would see tar sands oil processed and the refined products of gasoline, aviation fuel and diesel, shipped over seas. According to Black, the project could create some 3 thousand permanent jobs. He calls it Nation Building, and stresses that Canada needs to get it’s commodities to market. With the rest of the world reducing their levels of fossil fuel use, Asia is a perfect customer.
Black says this proposed refinery would not be linked to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway twin pipeline. “I asked Enbridge if they would deliver their product to a refinery near Kitimat instead of tankers, and they said their partners were not supportive of that idea.” That means he is talking about a separate pipeline system, which, like the Northern Gateway project would carry bitumen west, and condensate east.
But in this part of B.C. there is strong opposition to an oil pipeline crossing through an area that has fragile watersheds for some of the most pristine rivers in the nation. The Carrier Sekani Tribal Council has made it clear, Enbridge is not welcome and that they will not allow an oil pipeline through their territory.
Black is aware of the opposition mounted by First Nations against the Enbridge proposal. He says he has met with 20 Chiefs between Prince George and Kitimat “We’re getting a pretty good reception.”
Black says overcoming the worries about pipelines and making sure the lines are safe are key to gaining support, but he adds there is a financial benefit “For the First Nations, and for municipalities, I add, if I comes by train, there is no money for anyone. If it comes by pipeline, you are going to get a chunk of money every year, and so will all the municipalities because it’s a new thing to tax.”
According to Black, of the 20 or so Chiefs he has spoken with, some are slightly in favour of his plan, some are slightly opposed, “But everybody to a person, is saying, we need more information. Nobody is saying, ‘get off my reserve, never darken my door again, I don’t want to think about this, or talk about it’, no body is saying that. It is a civil intelligent conversation. People want to know if modern pipelines are safe and if they are, and we can prove that, I think we can proceed.”
Black is confident he has the necessary funding “It looks like I’ve got the money, I’ve got an MOU with the Chinese where there’s going to be an off- take agreement involved when we sign it and they’ll put up most of the money.”
He says the arguments in favour of his proposal are pretty simple “It starts with this premise, Canada must get this oil to market. A lot of our national money has come from selling oil, has been for a long time, our market in the States is starting to dry up. “ He says the question is, will the oil be shipped across B.C. by rail, or will it be a pipeline.”Modern day pipelines are safe, they do not leak” says Black who says adding trains to the CN mainline between Kitimat and Jasper is not the answer.
He is hopeful of filing for an environmental assessment next year. Black sees himself as being in the role of facilitator “ I’m just marshalling the consultants and helping figure out how we make change happen.” Black says he was driven to develop this project because he opposes the presence of oil tankers along the west coast “I’ve sailed up the Douglas Channel, and I thought, if we ever put bitumen into this water it would be a crying shame. Why would we do that when we can build a refinery and help ourselves.”
One thing is certain, Black is not in this for the money, he says he has more than enough “I’m doing this because I think it’s the right thing for Canada and B.C. and the First Nations.”
Can he convince the First Nations to support his plan? Black smiled as he offered this optimistic rely “I don’t have any firm yes’s, but I also don’t have any firm no’s.”
Comments
Mr Black might have his heart in the right place if he believes this project is the best for Canada, B.C. and the First Nations, however the plan lacks even a modicum of common sense and is in fact dangerous to all three parties.
First of all, we need to be exporting natural gas, not oil. BC gas is worth up to 600% more on the world market than we are selling it for in North America. Alberta hopes to narrow the price differential on their oil to something less than 30% The first rule of business is to go where the money is, and that is definitely not oil. There is a reason why there are 8 different proposals to export LNG. Mr Black needs to get out of the way with his refinery idea.
Secondly there is no reason to export this oil. Eastern Canada imports far more than the proposed refinery capacity, and it already pays world price. Send the oil east, not west.
Third the location of the refinery on the mouth of the Kitimat river is an abomination. The water and fisheries will be decimated, to say nothing of the effect on the airshed.
If Mr Black truly wants to help Canada, BC, and the First Nations, he will use his talents for publicity to push LNG. Otherwise I suspect he merely has a hand out for Chinese largesse.
Cant see why you would build a refinery in Kitimat. You may as well build it in Alberta and ship the refined product.
Perhaps building it in Kitimat is the **carrot** to get a pipeline built.
In any event this will never happen. I doubt if Mr Black owns any oil, and also doubt that the major companies will give him any to refine.
There have been approx. 30 refineries shut down in Canada between 1970 and 2012, so it seems shutting them down is more important than building them.
There hasn’t been a refinery built since the 80’s. Unfortunately, the sconomics to refine it offshore are better.
If the pipeline doesn’t happen, neither will the refinery. I still believe Northern Gateway will be built, but we’ll see.
As for exporting oil, we already do that… to the US for a discount. And we may lose them as a customer soon.
We are the U.S. largest single supplier of oil. Highly unlikely that we would lose them as a customer unless you have drunk the Bakken kool-aid and actually believe that they will become oil self sufficient.
Here is a cogent explanation on why the US will not become energy self sufficient.
(url)http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/1114/An-America-self-sufficient-in-oil-Don-t-bet-on-it(/url)
oops wrong brackets-
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2012/1114/An-America-self-sufficient-in-oil-Don-t-bet-on-it
That’s great, but it’s all speculation. I could find articles on the internet that say that the US will become more self sufficient. The world is full of experts.
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/plugged-in/2012/11/13/u-s-poised-for-energy-self-sufficiency/
Who’s right? Who knows. Money talks and BS walks.
There are the experts who work for the various levels of government. Their good and bad decisions is what determines the amount of tax we end up having to pay for a common quality standard of service though the taxes we are assessed.
There are experts who work for carious competing private industries. Their successful companies and their not-so-successful companies combined in a unified goods and service delivery marketplace determine the end price we have to pay for goods and services we buy. In other words, we pay for the failures through various means â purchase of lousy products, tax incentives to lousy businesses, bail out insurances, bankruptcy adjustments to companies who get 20cents on the dollar etc. etc.
Are there more or less such failures these days that we are paying for, basically subsidizing people who are happy with less than 100% reliability ratings? ⦠99 ⦠98 â¦. 95 ⦠90???? How low or how high have we gone and will we go?
Anyone who is reliable keeping tabs?
If we ship the oil unrefined, then aren’t we shipping jobs out (even though I realize there may be a shortage of employee, but that is probably not going to be forever) So I agree that it should be refined here…..but I also agree, that we should be looking after our own country first and shipping it east if it is needed there.
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