Why the oil sands no longer make economic sense

[furrowtickler]

Your post said water for fracking - that area is relatively close to the Great Lakes . Just going by what you posted - you never mentioned selling water to the central California area. Of course BC is closer but that had nothing to do with your post or this thread .
Oil will be back over $70 before it drops anouther 25%. A change in US presidency and oil pipelines will be on the books again .

[Hamloc]

The price of oil was as low as 10 dollars a barrel in the mid eighties and oil sands developement continued. There is no doubt the enviros would like the oil sands shuttered, still don't understand why oil shipped across the ocean from Iran, Iraq or the Saudi's is a better option than employing Canadians. The worlds increasing population and increasing incomes in China and India will keep the demand for oil strong. All that carbon taxes will do is make everything we consume more expensive and punish the poorest in society the most.

[dmlfarmer]

Furrow: Under Obama's presidency there has been more pipelines built than ever before. Last week the Financial Post had an article that stated: "America has built the equivalent of 10 Keystone pipelines since 2010 — and nobody said anything." Between 2008 and today there has been more than 15,750 miles of crude oil pipelines built in the US. Obama is not anti pipeline just anti keystone. Add in all the natural gas, petroleum and distrubition pipelines built over the last 7 years and Keystone looks like a matchbox toy line. And considering we have been unable to get east/west pipelines built that entirely cross Canadian lands, I find it hard to fault Obama alone for the failure of Keystone.

[Oliver88]

The issue with Keystone is every radical lefty like Neil Young started rallying against it so Hollywood's president wanted to reward his environmentalist base.

Obama knows where his Eco-donor money comes from and he wanted to reject this pipeline that garnered a lot of attention before the upcoming Paris climate conference.

Due to personal financial reasons/radical liberal ideology, Obama alone stopped this pipeline.....for now.

[tweety]

Should stop all oil development in Canada, leave it in the ground and just buy the basically free stuff from Saudi. Then when its all gone, sell the oilsands for ten times or more as much as today.

[bucket]

Tweety

Right. But you can't quit ensuring that they are ready to go.

Whenever cheap oil ends, better be ready to turn them up.

There are smart people that can figure out a cleaner process.

Somehow I think of the forest fires from up north this year and never remember seeing the same ill effects from the oilsands.

[BFW]

TWeety do you really believe that Saudi production would be priced where it is if there was no crude produced in the Alberta oilsands?

[ColevilleH2S]

What to be successful? Listen carefully to what Jeff Rubin suggests, and do the opposite.

[foragefarmer]

Oliver 88

It wasn't Neil Young who stop Keystone, but rather a Nebraska rancher. In fact it's still in court in Nebraska. Not sure how you can blame the "Lefties" on this one.

Harper never helped the cause either with is cocky remarks of " it's a no brainer" and "no is not a option"

[dmlfarmer]

You are missing the point. Keystone provided no net benefit to the US, only to Canada. Plus it was opposed by many groups including enviromentalists, farmers and ranchers, and even some in the oil industry as it would compete with new US production.]

If you were the PM of Canada and the US wanted to build a pipeline from the Bakken fields of North Dakota to Churchhill for the purpose of getting ND oil to tidewater in the belief that global warming would make this port usable year round in the future, would you approve this pipeline? Or if they wanted to build the pipeline to Kitamat to export to Asia (Northern Gateway route) would you approve it knowing it would only move US oil across Canadian soil and sensitive environmental areas and is opposed by many Canadian groups?

[ado089]

Keystone is a non-issue. The Americans are already getting all the oil they want from us at a discount. Why would they want a pipeline that would mean paying Gulf price for crude. Oil needs to move east and west so it can fetch a global price.

[chuckChuck]

Trans Canada Energy east project also included a proposed feeder pipeline from the Bakken oil development in North Dakota to meet up at Moosomin.

It was planned to carry 200-300,000 barrels per day. Whether it ever happens or not is another question as they may build enough US pipelines that will carry Bakken oil before Trans Canada gets operational.

Bakken development is facing a similar problem in that the pipeline infrastructure is not sufficient. But if the demand in China is slowing and the world economy is weak it may take many years for oil prices to recover enough to justify all this expanded production and infrastructure.

[farmaholic]

I wonder how many cars per week get pulled from Stoughton Sk. to Regina?

[AlbertaFarmer5]

Regarding keeping the oil in the ground, but ready to go. Maybe the shoe would be on the other foot then. It would be the threat of oil sands oil flooding the market that would keep the middle eastern oil cheap and flowing. Make OPEC irrelevant. Tell the world that oil sands are shut in at anything below $x.xx And full bore above that. That would neuter OPEC.

Not advocating this, and not going to happen of course.

[perfecho]

Kinda like farmers not growing unless a certain price?????