^ Great questions VHF, but we have the raw materials. Couldn't we figure out how to make a value added product....and sell retail instead of wholesale?
Perhaps our labour costs are too high?
Oh, we could make it. We could make it right up in northern Alberta. But does it make economic sense to have rail cars and/or trucks leaving Ft. McMurray with benzene, kerosene, motor oil, gasoline, grease, varsol, plastic base, propane etc. and all the tens or hundreds of other things we make crude oil into. It sounds to me that we'd have lots of car/trucks leaving, then going all over the place, after traveling long distances, then an awful lot of the same vessels coming back empty.
On the other hand, the big Irving refinery in the Maritimes makes all that stuff, and trucks/trains it a small distance to consumers and industrial plants in New York, Pennsylvania or Ohio.
It's easy for me to see which one is less expensive. It's easy for me to see that a pipeline right down to Beaumont, TX makes more sense, the goo goes down there, becomes end-products, and supplies the Texas, Arizona and southern California markets.
<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>