Further to Kate’s post, one just hopes that damn oil pipeline to the west coast gets built for the Chinese and other Asian markets (more here).
Further to Kate’s post, one just hopes that damn oil pipeline to the west coast gets built for the Chinese and other Asian markets (more here).
Less than a year until the next US election.
Obama has now pissed off the labour unions, who he’s obviously taken for granted, in favour of the environmentalists.
The Green Agenda is taking more and more hits every week … Solyndra, etc.
By the time next November rolls around, it’s hard to figure out who exactly will be supporting the Dems, other than the entitled classes.
“…it’s hard to figure out who exactly will be supporting the Dems…”
It’ll be the usual. Graveyards, nursing homes for the demented, welfare recipients, characters from books, family pets…
… women that look like Shamu the killer whale…
I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of selling our stuff to the highest bidder.
Screw the Obamericans
Interesting. So if the labour Unions are at odds with the Environmentalists on the Oil Sands issue, I wonder what their stances would be should we go with the Chinese instead of the U.S.? The Chinese would probably not be pro-Labour if it subverted their own profits (plus it’s communist State-owned investment and Unions are usually outlawed in communist countries) and the pro-Environment lobby would have a tough time overlooking China’s own serious enviro violations back home.
What a conundrum — three exclusively Left interests would be in a serious ideological conflict of interest over the Oil Sands. One can only hope — “a house divided against itself cannot stand”, comes to mind.
My first preference would be to build a refinery in the west for the oil, and my second choice would be, actually has been for some time, to sell it to another market, Chinese or otherwise. Funny the claim that this pipeline would be such a threat to the enfironment when the Americans already have pipelines running through the same area.
From the Journal, well, well, no surprise that the Dene alliance is at the head of the line opposing Gateway. This is the same bunch that blocked MacKenzie despite agreement from all the other involved aboriginal groups. One has to wonder how much the Dene are getting paid off by big American charitable foundations to block every single Canadian pipeline project in the west.
And then there’s this bit.
“Enbridge has accused speakers at the hearing, the majority corralled by environmental organizations who took credit, with trying to overwhelm the process.”
No kidding. This is standard tactics for the ENGOs every single time. They do it for two reasons: 1. because the process truly is the obstacle, and 2. because when all of their thousands can’t be heard or are forced to pool their so-called testimony it becomes a justification to go to court afterwards to overturn the results of the process. They don’t win the court case, but it drags on long enough that the project may die anyway.
The Seaborne review panel staggered on for more than eight years in the 1990s because of a weak chair who wasn’t prepared to force time limits on the process. And at the end, after all the accommodation, Blair Seaborne still turned in a useless report.
So be prepared, my children. The ENGOs are going to fight like mad over this one and try to use every trick in the book.
we need to step away from the USA. economically, militarily, and become a power in our own right. build the damn pipeline west! become the Saudi oil to the Chinese for self protection!
Build more pipelines to the coast. Once it’s on salt water it can be sold anywhere including Texas. That way we don’t have to disturb a few hundred out of millions of acres of Nebraska sandhills.
“Once it’s on salt water it can be sold anywhere including Texas.”
Well, no. You can’t get tankers through the Panama Canal.
I don’t know why we would want to help China gain further dominance, America is only going to be a Marxist superpower for one more year, China, could be one more century.
I can also understand the concerns in Nebraska about their water supply. The original route plan was probably not the best choice.
We can afford to wait a year, although I like the idea of doing more refining here, same applies to many of our natural resources.
“Well, no. You can’t get tankers through the Panama Canal.”
But they are working on it. There’s still Cape Horn.
Again we miss the point..
Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and other states close to the Canadian pipeline acreage are not concerned with oil polluted waters.
They are concerned with the billions/trillions of dollars given them from the government handouts to cover bio fuels/diesel synfuels.
Now at a mandated 10% and hoping to go to 20%.
More oil from our northern friends will mean less monies for the feed and seed corn markets and their government lobbyists..
Oblamya wants to shaft the Koch brothers.
From Rush today;”
(he’s responding to a caller concerned about water table safety)
The real reason is February of this year, Reuters reported that Koch Industries were poised to be the big winners in the pipeline.
[…]
And because they are conservative and they give money to conservative causes — and they’re just one for every ten liberal groups like them. And because it is said that the Koch Industries bunch is gonna benefit from this, can’t happen. That’s why the left opposes it. Because Koch industry’s gonna benefit. It’s absolutely pure politics.
[…]
Every time you hear Obama talk about his laser-like focus on jobs, creating jobs and stuff, just remember 20,000 jobs down the tubes delaying this pipeline or not approving it, and the only reason he did that was to keep campaign contributions coming. And you ranchers in Nebraska, I’m just gonna tell you something, if Obama wins reelection, this pipeline’s gonna be approved after the election. The only reason he doesn’t do it now is because it will upset his base. The only reason. He can’t do something good for the country without harming his reelection chances, it’s just amazing.
Should this pipeline be approved within a year, the Republicans will use it to beat Obama like a pinata during their next election.
I’m guessing the Saudis called up and told Obama to put a stop to the pipeline.
You need to go here:http://fairquestions.typepad.com/rethink_campaigns/
see #4. Hewlett Foundation – that’s Hewlett Packard to you. i don’t do business with them any more. If you support this pipeline and the development of the oil sands, neither should you.
“I’m entirely comfortable with the idea of selling our stuff to the highest bidder.”
I’m not. The Chinese are not our friends. They’re not anyone’s friend. That’s not an entity that we should be supplying raw materials to.
If the US doesn’t want our oil, why don’t we make great pains to give our oil to the Japanese and South Koreans and encourage them to nuclearise? What a thumb in the eye to both the Obama administration and the holder of its leash, the Chinese.
Thank you Edward. I agree totally. Besides, if the Chinese control the oilsands, they’ll suck it dry in 10 years.
Agreed, Teach & coach.
Not to be trifled with.
While the west is asleep at the wheel, the Chinese are installing remote control techno gizmos on our stuff!
They’re not our friends!
Too late smart, too soon dead!!
Obambi WTF-winning the future. Ya think?
Obambi, shovel-ready project. Ya think?
The guy is a nuclear grade bozo.
How would a pipeline to the west coast work? I thought Keystone was about the refineries in Texas?
Bitumen on oil tankers?
Maybe it’s time for a Grant Devine style project and the government just does a refinery like the 80’s.???
Scar: “But they are working on it. There’s still Cape Horn.”
1. No they’re not.
2. No one in his right mind routes cargo around Cape Horn.
Fearless leader, you are entirely right. There’s a lot of ethanol politics caught up with this, along with Obama putting the screws to political opponents.
Coach: “Besides, if the Chinese control the oilsands, they’ll suck it dry in 10 years.”
Silly beyond belief. First, do you actually understand just how much oil is in Alberta and Saskatchewan? Second, do you have any idea of just how much pipeline and upgrader infrastructure would be needed to do this? Third, natural resources are the sovereign domain of the provinces. So just how are the Chinese going to “get control” of it? Trainloads of fortune cookies?
Norman, you are quite right. None of the established oil suppliers like a new competitor coming into the market which doesn’t offer the kinds of political and stability problems that they have.
The Obama administration is a lot like that of Chavez in Venezuela. They change established processes for their own gain. With any luck, when Israel hits Iran within the next couple of months and oil goes to $200 a barrel, some of the valves on the oil and gas pipelines from Canada to the US “malfunction”.
Oh…and Norman…you may be right about the Saudis. The phoney environmental interest in the US are heavily funded by competing interests….primarily the Saudis.
A few weeks ago, it was reported that the Saudis retained the law firm of NORTON ROSE (remember that name because it comes up again later) to send threatening letters to a number of Canadian media outlets, including CTV, that if they continue to air “Ethical Oil” advertising, they would be sued.
On September 22, 2011, the G&M reported a story which said in part “the UK Tar Sands Network demands that the “British government stop defending Canada’s criminal record on climate change.”
In the story which can be viewed here:
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/keep-alberta-oil-off-your-hands-environmentalists-warn-british-pm/article2175933/?service=mobile
it said that “We would just like to say that David Cameron needs to look at how far he is sidling up to Canada in terms of pushing tar sands oil at a time when people in Europe and the UK are opposed to tar sands extraction,” Gemma Long, a campaigner with the group, said in a telephone interview from Britain.”
So the spokesperson campaigner is someone named Gemma Long……and Gemma Long just happens to be….wait for it…..a banking lawyer specializing in “energy, financial institutions and transport” with the same law firm, NORTON ROSE. You can check it out here for yourself.
http://www.nortonrose.com/people/50037/gemma-long
Environmental groups are not environmental groups at all…they are foreign government shills….pure and simple. ..
Having a pipeline to the west coast would be great but I don’t think we’ll be able to approve a pipleline any faster than the Americans can, much as I wish we could.
We couldn’t build the McKenzie pipeline, we couldn’t build a refinery in Ontario, we can’t even build a power plant near Toronto.
I’m as annoyed by the Keystone situation as anyone, but we have the same problems here.
I’m with norman @7:03pm
The west route is a good one. Sure the natives are going to oppose but their bottom line is cash. They look at what happened with the MacKenzie Valley line and how they got sold a bill of goods by Thomas Burger and they will not let that happen again.
Now that all the shale gas is available the MacKenzie line is likely to never be built. Opportunity lost.
The oil sands have 100 year supply for all of North America probably more. The Chinese know this and they need the energy. The pipeline to the Pacific doesn’t need foreign approval. Game, set match
A west Coast Oil pipeline will never be built.
The eco-ngos have out flanked us by quietly co-opting the west coast native groups with tens of millions of dollars in the last few years.
Resistance to any form of resource extraction has been bought,althought this will be counter productive in lifting native bands out of self imposed third world living conditions, it should be remembered that these groups are considered mere cannon fodder in George Soro’s great game just like the usefull idiots playing at the “occupy—” sites.
Read up on Saul Alinsky and Cloward and Piven and it all falls into place.
Lets start by building out own refineries and ship a finished product by tanker trucks and rail like Texas does. Why think small ?.
Turn off the taps for a week or two.
Then we’ll see how much OBOZO likes Canadian oil.
Reactionary? Sure, but, the message is sent.
Your right peterj. What is the name of your endeavour so that others may buy stock in your refinery and transportation co.?
Saskatchewan presently is suffering from a diesel shortage thanks to the recent fire at the Regina upgrader/refinery. A lot of trucking and drilling/industrial activity might come to a standstill. This tells me that there is not a lot of surplus refining capacity. There should be a program of building sufficient upgrading and refining capacity to meet at least Canadian demand. The oil trains can carry refined product to anywhere in North America then, including Ontario and Quebec.
The Athabasca oil sands are an immense resource, and the current development will be too much for present-day infrastructure to handle. I am sure Keystone is critical to expansion plans, but the oil companies involved are probably planning ahead on other ways to get their product to market.
Keystone and Gateway pipelines, and new refining capcity – all of the above, is probably the approach to take to keep Alberta’s economy growing.
From comments above, it seems companies involved in the oil sands and Canadians in general have been a bit innocent and naive, and the ENGOS and possibly Saudi interests have at least temporarily boxed in further profitable expansion of oil sands production.
In today’s National Post, a letter to their financial editor wondered why we don’t build a pipeline to ship Western oil to Eastern Canada (where we still import some foreign oil), and refine it there. But, as Kevin Jaeger rightly pointed out above (and may I compliment his parents on their choice of given names?), our society has lost the will to overcome the whiners. As we saw in the recent Ontario election, the NIMBY nincompoops wouldn’t even let us build a natural gas plant where it is needed even though such a plant would probably be quieter and less intrusive than, say, a hip-hop club. (I haven’t, for example, heard of many gun battles erupting outside power plants.) Rick Perry has a better shot at the presidency than we do of seeing a new refinery in southern Ontario.
The neo-fascists have managed to impose an unbelievably sclerotic paradigm on us. It’s simple to state, but devilishly difficult to sidestep: “What everybody doesn’t want, nobody gets”. No matter how useful or beneficial a proposal is, so long as 500 people are willing to protest against it, our courageous politicians will find a way to go on vacation, take a long nap, or re-arrange their sock drawers.
The big wars of the 21st century (barring some pistachioed Iranian nutbar tossing a few nukes towards Tel Aviv) will be civil wars between the neo-fascists who seek to tell everyone how to live, think, play, and even eat, and those who wish to be left alone to work and live as they please. America’s hope may lay within the 2nd Amendment; we have no such solace on the horizon.
@ liberallythinking
I wish.
Just can’t see a downside on that type of investment.
Is this Ogalala aquifer not the same aquifer that the military dumped unused mustard gas into after the war just for disposal? I’m sure I read this years ago, these environMENTALists are just jumping for joy, they have helped yet once again to put the price of fuel and energy in general up once again. Pipelines under 5 feet of dirt, bedded in sand are just so dangerous, no watching any Hollywood idiot is far more damaging to the world in general, stupid is as stupid does, right all you Forrests in Hollywood.
Welcoming to the tyranny of the Elite.
The Ogallala Aquifer will be dry in 25 years and the Great American Desert will again be the Great American Desert. Don’t tell anyone but there are aquifers everywhere so no development should be allowed anywhere.
The diesel shortage? There is one excuse after another as to why there is a continual shortage of fuel in Western Canada and outrageous prices. A cynic might believe it was deliberate. Thank goodness no-one here is a cynic.
“…why we don’t build a pipeline to ship Western oil to Eastern Canada…”
Too much infrastructure cost for the size of the market involved. It was true in the 1950s when TCPL was built, and it’s still true today.
Reality. No energy from hydrocarbons. You return to the stone age or occupy Vancouver both are one and the same.
It should make no difference whether Keystone XL was given a go ahead or not as far as the construction of a oil line to Kitimat is concerned. It is in the national interest of Canada that it be built. Whether to Kitimat or Vancouver is again somewhat beside the point other than construction cost. Oil exports are an insurance policy against further deterioration of the N. American economy. A mature economy never limits its customer base to one!
Since upgraded heavy oil is sold at a $20 – $25 barrel discount to the USA my first thought was that a $10 per barrel tax be levied at the border. The revenue would be sunk back into greening the Fort Mac mines.
Enbridge’s line into Kitimat cannot be delayed. Since LNG exports projects are already underway, the tanker traffic will happen. There is already a oil pipeline taking condesate from Kitimat to Edmonton and a natural gas pipeline.
For once I would like the naysayers have to live with the economic results of their activities. Most live off the public teat already. If the country wasn’t as rich as it is from the very activities they protest they would go hungry!
The comments on radio here in the US were along the lines of he’s delaying until AFTER the election so as not to piss off his Greentard base.
It will be his last term (THIS should be the last term) and he’ll throw whomever he wants under the bus.
I guess the celebrities and the movie stars don’t mind spending $5 per US Gallon
cgh- 35 years in the oilpatch has taught me a number of things. First and foremost; be skeptical of “estimated reserves”. Usually estimated high by 50%. The oilsands were predicted to last 100 years at a certain level of production. That was 40 years ago, and production levels could easily triple, if we sell to China.
There are already Chinese owned companies with large holding in the oilsands, and there are Chinese bids to buy more holdings. The province may have domain over the resource, but once the rights are sold to an oil company, those reserves are the property of said company. They can exploit the resource as quickly as is environmentally and financially reasonable. If they can’t find workers to meet their demands, it would be completely within their rights to bring in foreign(Chinese) labour. The province would have very little control over movement of the product. The Chinese could simply point out the $millions they paid for the minerals rights, and demand a refund if their progress is obstructed.
This isn’t much different from the old “Ugly American” style of resource development in third world countries. The most we can expect from it is a few jobs, and some royalty money.
Personally I would build a pipeline to Ontario. refine the oil their and then ship the refined product south.
@ Wayne Lymburner
Why Ontario ? You would only run into the “nimby” problem and McGuinty is a certified tree hugger. Why not build it in Northern Alberta or N. Sask. Keep it in the west where it’s appreciated. Sask.an Alta already have the rail infrastuctre now used for grain.
WOW what vitriol! Being that I was born in edmonton, I am not really surprised. We in the US, by the way the 3rd largest producer of oil in the world….ahhmmmm, ahead of Canada I might add. I want the pipeline to be built, but it is your liberal socialist buddies in America that want it stopped. They want us on our knees. We really don’t need the oil, we have many times more than Canada, the trouble is envirowacos won’t let us drill for it! Just remember this, you don’t buy from us, we don’t buy from you.
@ S Becker
You do not have many times more. You do use many times more. Big difference.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_by_country