736,000 Barrels Per Day
Thanos @ Mon Jun 20, 2016 10:44 pm
That's what's imported into Canada from the US, Saudi Arabia, and Nigeria.
http://calgaryherald.com/opinion/column ... lberta-oil
$1:
For Calgary men who moan about women drivers, there’s good news — we’re doing our bit for those fair-minded lads running Saudi Arabia.
Yes, over there in that glorious bastion of free speech and human rights, where stroppy lasses who get behind the wheel face a nice bit of righteous stoning, they’re doing a jig in the sand about their latest oil export numbers.
Yep, Johnny and Jane Canuck are giving the House of Saud the old double thumbs up by importing more of their oil than ever before.
Not just that, but we’re also giving the finger to British Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently told the Queen that Nigeria was one of the most wondrously corrupt nations on the planet. Yep, we upped our imported barrels from that joyous regime as well in 2015.
Of course, their innocent oil just sails across the Atlantic in big old tanker ships before docking at our eastern shores. Let’s all say a collective hallelujah because such fuel isn’t tainted by arriving via pipelines, as Alberta crude would be.
No, that prospect — of sending Canadian oil across Canadian soil to a Canadian refinery, and in doing so, paying Canadian taxes to various Canadian provinces, as well as wages to Canadians, and thereby improving Canada’s economy, thus allowing Canada’s federal government to pay for things such as health care and pensions for Canadians — is worthy of as much protest as the frothing-at-the-mouth brigade can muster.
I’m not making this up. Recent National Energy Board stats show we imported 736,000 barrels of oil costing us about $35 million each and every day last year.
Most of it was from the U.S., but the Saudis got well over 10 per cent of the Maple Leaf pie, while Nigeria tripled its take to more than 35,000 barrels a day.
A few miles away — well, a few thousand — the oilsands pumped over half of the four million barrels a day Canada produced. Yet access to market is increasingly being hemmed in by our own citizens’ concerns. Or at least a vocal minority of our citizens, who apparently want to save the planet, even if it means women in Riyadh can’t leave the house unless hubby allows it.
Of course they’ll never equate those two arguments, and it’s a lot sexier and safer protesting in a country where you won’t get your head chopped off for opening your mouth, or have your young daughter abducted at school while you’re on the stomp.
Long may that continue. Free speech and the right to protest is a glorious thing — heck, I’ve managed to annoy everyone who’d ever give me a regular paycheque, but at least they haven’t stoned me in the marketplace, yet.
But, by the same token, such freedom comes with a responsibility to listen and learn and not simply protest because it feels good to do so, or because, in the case of people who should be wiser, it’s politically expedient.
The latest bandwagon jumper is Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who’s doing his little bit to stop a westward pipeline, apparently worried about the increased tanker traffic. So, tankers from Saudi Arabia on the East Coast are good, but on the West Coast they aren’t?
Aside from the grandstanding — or fearmongering as Mayor Naheed Nenshi accurately portrayed it — the fact remains this country continues to use more oil and gas. More of it last year came from regimes most would consider odious. Blocking Canadian oil from our own markets only accentuates that problem.
Dial down the rhetoric and look at the issue. Wean ourselves off fossil fuels by all means, but let’s consume Canadian fuels while we work on that immense task.
Perhaps we should emulate cold-hearted insurance companies, who strip away emotion and simply look at facts — long ago sussing women drivers are better at it than men. But don’t whisper that in Riyadh, not if you want to keep your head.
Yes, over there in that glorious bastion of free speech and human rights, where stroppy lasses who get behind the wheel face a nice bit of righteous stoning, they’re doing a jig in the sand about their latest oil export numbers.
Yep, Johnny and Jane Canuck are giving the House of Saud the old double thumbs up by importing more of their oil than ever before.
Not just that, but we’re also giving the finger to British Prime Minister David Cameron, who recently told the Queen that Nigeria was one of the most wondrously corrupt nations on the planet. Yep, we upped our imported barrels from that joyous regime as well in 2015.
Of course, their innocent oil just sails across the Atlantic in big old tanker ships before docking at our eastern shores. Let’s all say a collective hallelujah because such fuel isn’t tainted by arriving via pipelines, as Alberta crude would be.
No, that prospect — of sending Canadian oil across Canadian soil to a Canadian refinery, and in doing so, paying Canadian taxes to various Canadian provinces, as well as wages to Canadians, and thereby improving Canada’s economy, thus allowing Canada’s federal government to pay for things such as health care and pensions for Canadians — is worthy of as much protest as the frothing-at-the-mouth brigade can muster.
I’m not making this up. Recent National Energy Board stats show we imported 736,000 barrels of oil costing us about $35 million each and every day last year.
Most of it was from the U.S., but the Saudis got well over 10 per cent of the Maple Leaf pie, while Nigeria tripled its take to more than 35,000 barrels a day.
A few miles away — well, a few thousand — the oilsands pumped over half of the four million barrels a day Canada produced. Yet access to market is increasingly being hemmed in by our own citizens’ concerns. Or at least a vocal minority of our citizens, who apparently want to save the planet, even if it means women in Riyadh can’t leave the house unless hubby allows it.
Of course they’ll never equate those two arguments, and it’s a lot sexier and safer protesting in a country where you won’t get your head chopped off for opening your mouth, or have your young daughter abducted at school while you’re on the stomp.
Long may that continue. Free speech and the right to protest is a glorious thing — heck, I’ve managed to annoy everyone who’d ever give me a regular paycheque, but at least they haven’t stoned me in the marketplace, yet.
But, by the same token, such freedom comes with a responsibility to listen and learn and not simply protest because it feels good to do so, or because, in the case of people who should be wiser, it’s politically expedient.
The latest bandwagon jumper is Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, who’s doing his little bit to stop a westward pipeline, apparently worried about the increased tanker traffic. So, tankers from Saudi Arabia on the East Coast are good, but on the West Coast they aren’t?
Aside from the grandstanding — or fearmongering as Mayor Naheed Nenshi accurately portrayed it — the fact remains this country continues to use more oil and gas. More of it last year came from regimes most would consider odious. Blocking Canadian oil from our own markets only accentuates that problem.
Dial down the rhetoric and look at the issue. Wean ourselves off fossil fuels by all means, but let’s consume Canadian fuels while we work on that immense task.
Perhaps we should emulate cold-hearted insurance companies, who strip away emotion and simply look at facts — long ago sussing women drivers are better at it than men. But don’t whisper that in Riyadh, not if you want to keep your head.
Canadian concern for other Canadian's interests, welfare, and economic stability, not to mention just a general appreciation for the enrichment the entire country has benefited from thanks to the domestic O&G industry? A sentiment that's about a mile wide and paper-thin deep.
martin14 @ Mon Jun 20, 2016 11:08 pm
Thanos Thanos:
No, that prospect — of sending Canadian oil across Canadian soil to a Canadian refinery, and in doing so, paying Canadian taxes to various Canadian provinces, as well as wages to Canadians, and thereby improving Canada’s economy, thus allowing Canada’s federal government to pay for things such as health care and pensions for Canadians — is worthy of as much protest as the frothing-at-the-mouth brigade can muster.
Please...
Stop...
Should have been done 40 years ago.
BartSimpson @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:43 am
But wait...what about Canada going 'green' and using 'sustainable' energy for everything? ![[huh]](./images/smilies/icon_scratch.gif "huh?"){kind=icon}
Thanos @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:49 am
We are what we are, what tradition and history made us into.
Deputy Solverson: well, we're a friendly people around here.
Mike Milligan: no, you're not. you're actually decidedly unfriendly. it's just that you're so polite about it.
andyt @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:52 am
That's not really going to help Alberta oil, is it? We are going greener, so are you. You rave against it, yet demand that we go fully green overnight. In other words, those imports will stop at some point too, but probably not to be replaced by Alberta oil. More and more people, including the investment community, questioning the finances of building more pipes. But if we build any pipe, one that supplies the east of our own country should be job one. This is what happens when you allow capitalism to run rampant - that pipe should have been built by the govt long ago, same as say the Trans-Canada or the railway.
Thanos @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:02 am
If that pipeline had been built by the government forty years ago it would still have to be replaced today. Metal fatigue, corrosion, erosion, and the sub-standard code requirements of the time (compared to today's) don't adhere to anyone's politics or have the slightest concern if it was publicly or privately funded. And the forces arrayed against a new pipeline today would have assembled the same way against replacing any cross-county old one built way back when. The fix that's been funded against us by the Arabs, George Soros, and Robert Kennedy Jr. simply turned out to be too big to overcome.
The deed is done and buying oil from places like Saudi Arabia is the reality that too many of our bravest of trendy dilettantes have no ethical problem with. Might as well start shuttering the domestic sector altogether regardless of any future economic decline that will affect the entire country. No one seems to care so there's no point fighting over it anymore.
Lemmy @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:08 am
Whether they care or not doesn't matter. Either way, Alberta needs to find something else to base its economy around. Look at this as opportunity.
BartSimpson @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:10 am
Lemmy Lemmy:
Whether they care or not doesn't matter. Either way, Alberta can go fuck itself. Look at this as opportunity.
FTFY.
andyt @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:22 am
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
Lemmy Lemmy:
Whether they care or not doesn't matter. Either way, Alberta can go fuck itself. Look at this as opportunity.
FTFY.
You can sing lullabies to Alberta all day long, but it won't change facts. It sure looks like oil might never regain it's high demand. Alberta had better look at other sources of income. If oil does come back big, that would be the gravy.
$1:
But our good times are all gone,
And I'm bound for moving on.
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way.
And I'm bound for moving on.
I'll look for you if I'm ever back this way.
BartSimpson @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:28 am
736,000 barrels of oil are imported into Canada and Alberta could be providing for that need instead of your being complicit with funding Islamic terrorism and the spread of Wahhabist extremism via its primary sponsor Saudi Arabia.
But, yeah, because 'green'. 
andyt @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:35 am
It's you who brought up the green thing.
As I said, people are starting to evaluate whether pipes make economic sense anymore. But sure, build it. The eastern pipe, AFAIK, is based on exporting dilbit to other countries. That demand may not be there anymore, or insufficient, and so does the pipe still make economic sense for private capital? Just as our gas export plans are struggling in BC.
peck420 @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 10:28 am
Lemmy Lemmy:
Whether they care or not doesn't matter. Either way, Alberta needs to find something else to base its economy around. Look at this as opportunity.
Alberta Economic Diversity 1985: Oil & Gas & Mining = 36.1%
Alberta Economic Diversity 2015: Oil & Gas & Mining = 18.3%
Yes, a good portion of the growth in other areas had been driven by OGM, but not all. Alberta has been diversifying at a fairly steady pace since the 80's, but with how prominent OGM was/is, it will still take another couple decades until it is not at the forefront of our economic outlook.
herbie @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 6:58 pm
BartSimpson BartSimpson:
736,000 barrels of oil are imported into Canada and Alberta could be providing for that need instead of your being complicit with funding Islamic terrorism and the spread of Wahhabist extremism via its primary sponsor Saudi Arabia.
But, yeah, because 'green'.
But, yeah, because 'green'.
Umm, if you're worried about funding Islamic terrorism why doesn't Washington buy up every drop Alberta wants to sell. Or even offer to pay as much as for Arab oil?
Thanos @ Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:15 pm
Because the Americans are self-sufficient now and don't need our product in the same way they did a decade ago, and thanks to fracking/offshore they're expected to stay self-sufficient for most of the 2020's. Their "special relationship" with their bestest buddy Arabs also means they'll never do anything to put a stop to their own imports from the Saudis, even if the amount they now take from them is much smaller of a percentage than it used to be.
I don't dispute that one of the guiding factors is the cheapness of supply. Yes, it's somewhat cheaper for Eastern Canada to import than use Western oil. But Canada's done things in the past where the price wasn't considered the most important thing in terms of policy if the guys in Ottawa thought it was the correct thing to do for the country. Apparently getting the best bargain, which was never a consideration when propping up the east coast fisheries, the Maritime coal mines, building new shipyards that never actually produce a single ship for the navy, or bailing out Bombardier over and over and over again, isn't considered as important with those decisions. It had to be done to save jobs/votes/whatever. Just makes it all the more two-faced on the part of the East and Ottawa if suddenly it's like "why should we buy Albertan when the Arabs are practically giving it away". The same deal for Easterners will never be given to Westerners, not to save jobs, not to protect an industry, not for any reason. More of that all-Canadian bigotry & favouritism based solely on geographical location that this country has always been infamous for I suppose.
Canadian_Mind @ Wed Jun 22, 2016 5:31 am
Sooner or later another crisis will occur, oil will spike, and Alberta will have a few more boom years.