Hoarding is exactly what the government is doing right now by filling the SPR, and frankly it's the best thing that could happen. It drives prices up. High prices encourage demand destruction. They also finance new well development. The hoarded oil gives us a buffer to fall back on once shortages become more prevalent. High prices are what we need in order to adapt to what's coming, and the sooner they happen, the better.
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:21 pm Post subject: THE Canadian Oil Thread
Today Alberta announce that a new refinery will be build in Alberta, costing 7B dollars and producing up to 450,000 barrels of diesel/gasoline and kerosene. It will be one of the biggest in N. America. This is big news up here.
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:44 pm Post subject: Re: Alberta New Refinery
deMolay wrote:
Today Alberta announce that a new refinery will be build in Alberta, costing 7B dollars and producing up to 450,000 barrels of diesel/gasoline and kerosene. It will be one of the biggest in N. America. This is big news up here.
Was this late in the day since business closing? When you say 'Alberta' announced I assume you mean a company anounced? Just curious who and where?
The only new refinery announcement I heard today was the building of a new refinery by BP in India.
Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 9:06 pm Post subject: Re: Alberta New Refinery
Announced in the morning National Post. Alberta government along with 16 industry sponsors...including Encan, Canadian Natural Resources, Enbridge, Agrium, Petro-Canada, BP. Cost estimated at $7B, expandable to 450,000 bpd capacity...comparing well with large refineries on Gulf Coast. Estimate 2 years planning stage so really will not come into play for about 4 years I would guess.
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:40 am Post subject: China Trying To Outbid the USA for Alberta's Oil
With the help of the Communist Sympathizers in Ottawa, China will try to outbid and replace the Americans as Alberta's biggest consumer and customer for Alberta Oil. By GEOFFREY YORK
Friday, October 14, 2005 Posted at 4:29 AM EDT
From Friday's Globe and Mail
BEIJING — China's investment appetite for the Alberta oil sands has climbed so strongly that it could be importing 400,000 barrels of oil a day from Canada within the next seven years, Natural Resources Minister John McCallum says.
The Chinese oil ambitions in Canada, which intensified yesterday when Mr. McCallum met two of China's most powerful oil executives, are a key element in the Liberal government's aggressive push to diversify Canada's energy sales away from its traditional U.S. markets in the aftermath of the softwood-lumber dispute.
Despite denials from Ottawa, the government's new strategy of pitching oil to China is widely seen as a pressure tactic against Washington after its refusal to comply with the NAFTA softwood ruling. The Americans are ignoring a ruling by a North American free-trade agreement panel that U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber are illegal under U.S. trade law.
The New York Times this week described Ottawa's campaign as "a series of subtle threats" against the administration of President George W. Bush.
Mr. McCallum held meetings in Beijing yesterday with the presidents of two of China's biggest state-owned oil companies. "They expressed strong interest in investing in the oil sands," he said in an interview. "Clearly they are ambitious in their thinking. They are definitely, seriously interested."
He said the companies, PetroChina and CNOOC Ltd., were "very positive" in their response to his pitch to invest in Canada. They are likely to get a more welcoming response from Canada than from the United States, where CNOOC's bid to acquire the American oil company Unocal was blocked by an angry political reaction.
Mr. McCallum said he received the 400,000-barrels-a-day estimate yesterday from Chinese and Canadian investors in Beijing, who called it an "ambitious but realistic target" for China's aspirations in the Canadian oil patch.
If the prediction is accurate, China's oil imports from Canada by 2012 will reach one-quarter of the current level of American oil imports from Canada, allowing Canada to make a substantial cut in its dependence on the United States, which buys about 85 per cent of Canada's oil exports.
"That would certainly be a very good beginning," Mr. McCallum said. "That's definitely significant."
He said he was able to obtain his meetings with the presidents of PetroChina and CNOOC at relatively short notice -- another sign of their strong interest in the Canadian energy sector.
Moving oil-sands crude of any significant volume to China will be challenging and hinges on a new pipeline to move the crude oil to the coast.
There are two proposals but Calgary-based Enbridge Inc. appears to have the edge, backing the $2.5-billion Gateway project. It would wend its way from Edmonton through the rugged terrain of northern British Columbia to the coast for export.
The 400,000-barrels-a-day Gateway line was once planned for 2009, but 2010 looks more realistic. Enbridge has to clear a long regulatory process, get native groups in the region onside and build the line during what could still be a building boom.
Enbridge has said 300,000 barrels could end up in Asia and it is possible all 400,000 barrels will go there, rather than send some to California as is now envisioned.
In April, PetroChina signed a preliminary deal to take 200,000 barrels a day from Gateway, one of three big oil-sands deals China has made this year. In May, SinoCanada Petroleum Corp. -- an arm of state-run Sinopec -- paid $105-million for a stake in the Northern Lights oil-sands project and CNOOC has paid $150-million for a one-sixth stake in MEG Energy, a small Canadian company with proprietary oil-sands technology.
Mr. McCallum is planning to invite Chinese Vice-Premier Zeng Peiyan to tour the Alberta oil sands and visit the new Prince Rupert, B.C., port facilities that could serve the Chinese oil market. He said Mr. Zeng, who would be the highest-ranking Chinese official to visit the oil sands, is likely to accept the invitation. He is the senior cabinet minister with responsibility for the energy sector.
Chinese officials have confirmed their strong appetite for increased oil imports from Canada. In the Chinese media yesterday, a senior Chinese diplomat in Ottawa was quoted as saying that China and Canada "should go deeper in their co-operation on energy and resources and build a long-term stable relationship." The diplomat, Liu Guosheng, said current investments in the Alberta oil sands are "a good start" toward bigger deals.
In his meetings in Beijing yesterday, Mr. McCallum called for quick implementation of the Canada-China "strategic partnership" that was announced last month by Prime Minister Paul Martin and Chinese President Hu Jintao.
"What I said to all the Chinese officials is that I'm here to get moving as quickly as possible on the strategic partnership," he said.
"It's one thing to sign a piece of paper and another thing to put it into action, and it's our intention to put it into action as quickly as possible. We're keen to increase our trade and investor relations with China in the energy sector and we're keen that they invest in Canada and we're hoping to increase our energy exports -- and they responded very positively."
China is likely to increase its oil imports from Canada by acting as an investor, rather than simply as a customer, Mr. McCallum said. This could include takeover bids and greenfield investments, as well as other forms of investment.
"They do not feel limited by how much economically can be sent to China. They could well make investments for sale in third markets. They're also interested in joint ventures or minority holdings or strategic alliances with Canadian companies. They could team up with Canadian companies in joint ventures to enter into production which isn't necessarily destined for China."
Joined: Jan 04, 2005 Posts: 623 Location: Australia
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:54 am Post subject: Re: China Trying To Outbid the USA for Alberta's Oil
And after all the blathering about dependancy and self sufficiency the net effect is zero. Oil is fungible. _________________ "Production of useful work is limited by the laws of thermodynamics, but the production of useless work seems to be unlimited."
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:18 am Post subject: Re: China Trying To Outbid the USA for Alberta's Oil
Quote:
And after all the blathering about dependancy and self sufficiency the net effect is zero. Oil is fungible.
According to game theory the net effect is not zero. Oil is fungible it can flow to either the USA, to China or to a third market, but only if the pipeline is built. At the moment oil must flow south, so there is no competition. Competition will dictate better terms of trade. This may spur more investment, which may be a win-win outcome for all parties, or it may mean Canada can also become a price dictator instead of merely a price taker.
Any way you slice it more competition is better for Canada. Especially if it gets the US' attention over the softwood lumber, cattle, hogs, soft winter wheat and other trade disputes as well as the US continuing to respect bilateral treaties over shared water resources. _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:27 am Post subject: Re: China Trying To Outbid the USA for Alberta's Oil
"With the help of the Communist Sympathizers in Ottawa, China will try to outbid and replace the Americans as Alberta's biggest consumer and customer for Alberta Oil."
Why would China need communist sympathizers to outbid Americans for oil infrastructure and supply? It's quite the opposite: it's called free enterprise...capitalism...the market deciding. Any oil lobby is anything but communist and is profit oriented.
The big issue here is too much oil on the market in 2015 to 2045 or so. The US market can absorb an extra million barrels or so of Alberta oil but then? It's that next million barrel production a day that is in question. Will there be a market? Getting a locked-in half million or so barrel/day infuses the confidence to go ahead and secure more capital to invest in increased bitumen production.
Joined: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 2332 Location: perpetual state of exhaustion
Posted: Sun Mar 05, 2006 12:16 am Post subject: Canada now biggest exporter of oil to US
"Canada has become the biggest exporter of oil to the United States with the re-opening of a pipeline from Alberta to Oklahoma.
Crude oil from Alberta's tar sands began flowing this week from the Calgary, Alberta-based Enbridge Corp.'s facility through a 650-mile stretch of steel from Chicago to Cushing, Okla.
For years the pipe, which used to be owned by BP, carried Gulf of Mexico crude to northern markets, but as the Gulf supply dwindles, the crude is flowing in a different direction, the Houston Chronicle reported Saturday.
The line has an initial capacity to transport 125,000 barrels of oil a day, but can be expanded easily, the report said.
Exxon Mobil is also working on a pipeline reversal that would bring Canadian crude down to Gulf Coast refiners instead of flowing Gulf oil north to Midwestern markets.
Canada outranks Mexico, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia as oil exporters, and will likely double its oil production in the next decade, thanks to production from the oil sands."
Not sure know how credible these guys are but interesting if true or (iit).
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:28 am Post subject: New sources of oil coming. Canada beats Saudi Arabia
are we saved..............again?
"How many times have we heard about the dangers of American dependence on Middle Eastern oil? Well, prepare yourself for a few statistical surprises. The latest figures from the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration are quite interesting. Those figures show that in January of this year, 74 percent of our oil imports came from just five countries, the same countries that were our top sources of foreign oil throughout 2005.
Granted, there's no surprise in learning that three quarters of our foreign-produced oil comes from just a few suppliers, but would you care to guess which countries are in that top-five list? Let's start at the bottom and work up. Last year we brought in almost 419 million barrels from Nigeria, and 450 million from Venezuela. Number three fits our common understanding - the "oil rich sheiks" of Saudi Arabia sold us 556 million barrels of crude. But number two starts to skew our stereotypes. In 2005, the U.S. imported just over 600 million barrels from Mexico.
Sitting at that number one spot, where it has been for a number of years, comes that vast repository of petroleum wealth, Canada. (Eh? What's that you say?) It's true.
Joined: Jun 02, 2004 Posts: 1078 Location: Bristol, UK
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 3:41 am Post subject: Re: New sources of oil coming. Canada beats Saudi Arabia
This really shouldn’t be news to anyone who thinks they know anything about oil… And it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference is Canada is the single biggest contributor to the world’s oil supply. To control the market you don’t need to be a big player – you just need to control the margin. Since there little or no slack in the system any and all producers ‘control’ the market.
There is also the small point of extraction costs in Canada being approximately 10 times higher than those in the Middle East. _________________ "Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen." The Emperor (Return of the Jedi)
The Oil Drum: Europe
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:09 am Post subject: Re: New sources of oil coming. Canada beats Saudi Arabia
I think some are beginning to get a clue. Check out this Rigzone article:
Quote:
The Wall Street Journal suggests that peak oil is not truly happening. "The surging interest in Canadian oil sands is stark evidence that the world isn't about to run out of oil. Instead, it is running low on readily accessible light, sweet crude -- oil that flows like water, has few impurities and can be easily turned into gasoline. As the good stuff gets scarce, Big Oil is turning its attention and pouring money into extra-heavy crude, such as the giant deposits near Fort McMurray and another similar one in Venezuela."
We were proponents of the same concept since we wrote "Successful Energy Sector Investing," in 2001. But five years later, a great deal has happened that has led us to a new perspective, that of joining the camp that believes that oil is perhaps at the start of its final stage as the primary fuel on planet Earth.
Why? The difference between oil, and cheap oil:
Quote:
According to the Journal: "heavy oil has big economic and environmental drawbacks. It costs more to produce and takes more energy to turn into gasoline than traditional light oil. Recovering and processing Fort McMurray's heavy crude releases up to three times as much greenhouse gas as producing conventional crude. And upgrading it into refined products, such as gasoline or diesel, will require a gigantic investment to retool global refineries."
The extraction process is so labor intensive and requires so much heat, in order to extract the oil from the tar sand that "Total briefly floated the idea of building a nuclear-power plant" in Fort Mc Murray.
In other words, just because new oil is likely to be more plentiful, processing costs will likely keep prices higher than in the past, and the toll on the environment won't be fully known for years to decades.
Indeed, some effects are already visible as "Canada, which exports more oil to the U.S. than any other country, already is having trouble meeting its pledge to cut CO2 emissions largely because of its mushrooming heavy-oil production. By 2015, Canada's Fort McMurray region, population 61,000, is expected to emit more greenhouse gases than Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people."
Even more alarming is this: "In northern Alberta, the oil-sands boom is remaking the landscape. The mining operations have clear-cut thousands of acres of trees and dug 200-foot-deep pits. The region is dotted with large man-made lakes filled with leftover waste from the mining operations. To chase off migratory birds, propane cannons go off at random intervals and scarecrows stand guard on floating barrels."
_________________ "The problems of today will not be solved by the same thinking that produced the problems in the first place." - Albert Einstein
Posted: Thu Mar 30, 2006 9:58 am Post subject: Re: New sources of oil coming. Canada beats Saudi Arabia
Add in that most of the crude is not accessable by strip minining...
Yet Shell is making huge investments in oil that will have to be produced in Situ...
Banking on THAI?
Keeping production just at this level will require injections of capitol, and thus partialy "justify" the huge profits that "Big Oil" is making....to what extent I don't know...and certainly 66 dollars a barrel is a function of GREED, fake scarcity (at least for now) and Speculation....
It is a "Gift" to petroleum companies from the invasion of Iraq and the fake terror war....let's see if they use it wisely... _________________ Eickhorn Daggers!
www.pistolanddagger.com
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