Moon The Loon Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 The price of gas at the pumps is a function of the refineries. Canada could be self-sufficient with "gas at the pumps" if it had the refineries to produce product. Why have refineries of the past been shut down? Why are we not paying $2+ / litre now other than the Ukraninian issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airband Posted May 11 Share Posted May 11 12 hours ago, Moon The Loon said: Why have refineries of the past been shut down? Just a guess... Old; 'dirty', small (size matters), many were not set up to handle Canadian grades (refits expensive). Difficult, time consuming and expensive to site new ones due to environmental opposition. Government demonization of the industry does little to whet the appetite of investors and spectre of a 'made in Canada' price restriction would just have them run further and faster (see NEP 1980). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted May 12 Author Share Posted May 12 How does one explain why crude oil refined at Cum By Chance is not allowed to be sold in Newfoundland or, as I understand it, anywhere in Canada? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted May 12 Author Share Posted May 12 There were three refineries in Dartmouth (across from Halifax) - Esso, Ultramar & (if I recall) Texaco. Two of them were dismantled in the 90's. Why? IRVING! A natural location for a massive refinery is in northern Alberta - adjacent the tar sands (they don't like them called that anymore). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kargokings Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 14 hours ago, Moon The Loon said: There were three refineries in Dartmouth (across from Halifax) - Esso, Ultramar & (if I recall) Texaco. Two of them were dismantled in the 90's. Why? IRVING! A natural location for a massive refinery is in northern Alberta - adjacent the tar sands (they don't like them called that anymore). No body in their right mind called them the "tar sands", except certain radicals from south of the 49th... and their followers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airband Posted May 12 Share Posted May 12 3 hours ago, Moon The Loon said: How does one explain why crude oil refined at Cum By Chance is not allowed to be sold in Newfoundland or, as I understand it, anywhere in Canada? Actually it could be sold in Nfld but not elsewhere in Canada and was a condition of sale placed on the refinery by it's one time owner Petro-Canada so as not to undercut it's other Canadian operations. Not currently a factor as refinery has been mothballed since Mar 2020. 3 hours ago, Moon The Loon said: There were three refineries in Dartmouth (across from Halifax) - Esso, Ultramar & (if I recall) Texaco. Two of them were dismantled in the 90's. Why? IRVING! Can't speak to the other two, but Esso (Imperial Oil) was simply too small (89k b/d) to compete against the likes of Irving (300+k b/d) and other refiners in the Atlantic Basin e.g. mega operations in New Jersey area. 3 hours ago, Moon The Loon said: A natural location for a massive refinery is in northern Alberta - adjacent the tar sands True enough - but a massive refinery would produce a massive amount of refined product, far beyond what the local Alta market could absorb. How do you get high volumes of various types of distillate products (gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, fuel oil, propane, etc) to end user markets a thousand+ kilometers away? Convert existing crude pipelines that might not longer be needed? Yes, except some of these distillates are corrosive and require specialized alloyed pipe, others have different pressure requirements and some don't travel well over shared facilities due to contamination issues. Build new pipelines - in today's environment? As some might say - good luck with that. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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