1833 replies to this topic

[sebberry]

Tankers to Kitimat are an ecological disaster waiting to happen.

[Mike K.]

To do what with? Without Europe and the US with a healthy economies to take their products, they don't have an increasing demand.

China is the world's second largest oil consumer. It's only a matter of time before it overtakes the USA.

BRIC countries are putting pressure on global oil production. Considering the world's economic state, if it wasn't for BRIC countries absorbing excess capacity we wouldn't be paying $1.40/L for gas in Vancouver or $4 a gallon in Washington State during the winter months. Come summer it's not hard to fathom we'll be paying multi-decade high prices, if not record prices, at the pumps.

[VicHockeyFan]

China is the world's second largest oil consumer. It's only a matter of time before it overtakes the USA.

I don't believe this will happen for at least 30 years, if at all.

BRIC countries are putting pressure on global oil production. Considering the world's economic state, if it wasn't for BRIC countries absorbing excess capacity we wouldn't be paying $1.40/L for gas in Vancouver or $4 a gallon in Washington State during the winter months. Come summer it's not hard to fathom we'll be paying multi-decade high prices, if not record prices, at the pumps.

I'll bet you we don't hit those highs this summer.

[Mike K.]

China already consumes more energy as a whole than the USA. That made for major headlines a few years ago. And I'll beg to differ about their oil consumption relative to the USA, but who knows.

I'll bet you we don't hit those highs this summer.

Vancouver's all-time high gas price was $1.51 in 2008. We're 9 cents from reaching that price. Add inflation and within some 15 cents the record will be broken.

Of course I'd prefer that you're right on this one

[LJ]

Tankers to Kitimat are an ecological disaster waiting to happen.

There has been shipping in and out of Kitimat for decades, and to my knowledge there has never been an accident or incident on the Skeena that caused a cargo loss.

[LJ]

[
It is my view that no matter what commodity we are exporting to Asia, or importing into Canada from Asia, Prince Rupert will be the logical port to use, and it appears that other big time players agree. Rail infrastructure is already in place.[/quote]

The rail infrastructure runs right beside the highway, and right beside the Skeena river, through several avalanche areas. Any derailment could take the oil right into the river, whereas a tanker would be unaffected. The Skeena river comes out right by Prince Rupert so any tanker traffic coming out of Rupert would take the same westward route as tankers from Kitimat. They could both go north of the Charlottes thence join the shipping lanes once west of them.

[Bingo]

[
The Skeena river comes out right by Prince Rupert so any tanker traffic coming out of Rupert would take the same westward route as tankers from Kitimat. They could both go north of the Charlottes thence join the shipping lanes once west of them.

This is not true. Kitimat is much further inland than Prince Rupert. It is quite obvious if you study the map.

There are no guarantees that any delivery method is 100% safe, but a holed oil tanker will spew millions of litres, and would be much harder to clean up in the narrow channels to Kitimat.

[jonny]

There have been thousands of tanker trips to Kitimat with zero incidences as far as I know.

Materials safely shipped to and from the port of Kitimat include bauxite, aluminum, paper, condensate, MTBE, methanol and ammonia.

Saying shipping from Kitimat is a disaster waiting to happen is pretty alarmist. Human existence is a disaster waiting to happen too I suppose.

[Bernard]

Kitimat has a much better location for the LNG plant - you need to have it isolated from everything else in case of a disaster

[North Shore]

I would not bet on long term high oil prices. More and more oil will be coming online because of the high prices. Meanwhile demand is likely to start falling, for a number of years now global demand has been between 83 and 88 million barrels a day. If demand had continued upwards at the historical rate it would more like 93 to 95 million barrels a day.

High oil prices is causing people to buy more fuel efficient cars. Industry is finding ways to cut down on all manner of petroleum products.

It takes very little excess supply to drive prices down very far.

I think it much more likely we would see a $50 a barrel oil than $200 a barrel oil.

I dunno, Bernard. MAny Western economies are in the sewer at present, yet oil prices are still creeping up again. IIRC, 88mb/day is roughly equivalent to 1000 bbl/second - or 42,000 gallons/second. That river of oil cannot go on forever, no matter how many Bakkens and Fort McMurrays we discover. Many independent petroleum geologists have worked on Hubbert's Peak theory, and have come up with a peak of conventional oil around 2010, and ~ 2% decline in production thereafter. OPEC is in terminal production decline; 33 out of 48 countries are reporting production declines..
Sure technology and efficiency will take some of that sting away, but I wouldn't bet on ever seeing $50/bbl again...

[Bernard]

I dunno, Bernard. MAny Western economies are in the sewer at present, yet oil prices are still creeping up again. IIRC, 88mb/day is roughly equivalent to 1000 bbl/second - or 42,000 gallons/second. That river of oil cannot go on forever, no matter how many Bakkens and Fort McMurrays we discover. Many independent petroleum geologists have worked on Hubbert's Peak theory, and have come up with a peak of conventional oil around 2010, and ~ 2% decline in production thereafter. OPEC is in terminal production decline; 33 out of 48 countries are reporting production declines..
Sure technology and efficiency will take some of that sting away, but I wouldn't bet on ever seeing $50/bbl again...

Over time more and more oil will be displaced by cheaper alternatives which means the demand for oil will fall.

The whole idea of Peak Oil is sort of out of the window noe that primary global oil sources are economical - the Alberta tars sands and Orinoco tar sands. It is because of these two sources that global oil reserves have risen over the last years

Oil reserves in top 20 countries in barrels-
2011 1,450,000,000,000 - 47 years at current production levels, just under 40 years at 100,000,000 barrels a day
2009 1,300,000,000,000
2007 1,200,000,000,000
2005 1,000,000,000,000

This is almost a 50% increase in six years.

As time goes by and the technology improves, the Canadian and Venezuelan oil reserves will rise. If the price were to rise to $200 a barrel, the Canadian oil reserves would more than double. We have little or no danger of running out of oil. Iraq may also have another 220,000,000,000 barrels of reserves but the data is not accurate enough to currently be included in the estimate lists.

Our current problem is all to do with supply bottlenecks and the long lag time it takes to bring new oil on line in the tar sands. The current high price is causing a shift away from oil as an energy source. The relative importance of oil to the economy is once again falling.

Oil will go away when other energy sources are cheaper and easier to deal with. In the near future the car is not going to any longer be powered by gasoline because other options will be cheaper.

[LJ]

This is not true. Kitimat is much further inland than Prince Rupert. It is quite obvious if you study the map.

.

Yes of course it is. I was thinking of the shipping into Terrace via the Skeena river, which comes out just south of Prince Rupert.

From Kitimat they would utilize Douglas channel which comes out further south.

[jonny]

Kitimat also has excess port capacity since Methanex and Eurocan shut down. I don't know about Rupert.

[Bingo]

Kinder Morgan to proceed with $5-billion Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to Burnaby.

The proposed expansion of the existing Alberta-to-Metro Vancouver pipeline, which Kinder Morgan wants operational by 2017, is to cost $5 billion. It will increase pipeline capacity for crude by 550,000 barrels a day, to 850,000 barrels from the current 300,000 barrels a day.

The expansion is bound to be controversial; Kinder Morgan now plans to construct as much new capacity as Enbridge Inc. has proposed for its contentious Northern Gateway pipeline, said Wilderness Committee campaigner Ben West.

Read more: http://www.vancouver...l#ixzz1rtKXTaKS

[snaptee]

Video from a talk former ICBC CEO Robyn Allan gave not long ago about the 'interesting' economics of Northern Gateway.

And for those of you who value fish.

[Bingo]

Although I do not want to see an increase in oil tanker traffic through British Columbia's narrow channels and straights, it could be inevitable that we are going to see more oil shipped across the province.

This debate is heating up.

I would be in favour of shipping oil by rail out of Prince Rupert to avoid using confined waterways.

Read;

Get the capacity you need to match your volume requirements

 

"Scalability is a key benefit of our Crude by Rail service. It means that we offer you capacity made to order to meet your volume requirements.
We have the capacity to move crude oil products on our network today. You can start with as few as 1,000 barrels a day. We can grow together to as many as 200,000 barrels per day or more.
We already move diluent, pipe, aggregate, steel, cement, sulphur, and petroleum coke into and out of the oil producing regions of western Canada. We're presently developing solutions for transporting CO2. We really are the total transportation solutions provider for the oil sands industry."

[url]http://www.cn.ca/en/...y-rail.htm[/URL

 

 

Edited by Bingo, 27 February 2016 - 09:12 AM.

[Sparky]

That train used to have a BC Rail logo on it until Campbel made an election promise not to sell it to his friend David McLean. A pox on them.

[Bingo]

USAT Brigadier General M. G. Zalinski

The Sinking
On 26 September 1946 the Zalinski was en route from Seattle to Whittier, Alaska, with a cargo of army supplies when she ran into the rocks of Pitt Island in the Grenville Channel, 55 miles south of Prince Rupert. The ship sank within twenty minutes, while her crew of 48 were rescued by the tug Sally N and the passenger steamer SS Catala. According to a report in The Vancouver Sun of 30 September 1946, at the time of her sinking she was transporting a cargo of at least twelve 500-pound (230 kg) bombs, large amounts of .30 and .50 caliber ammunition, at least 700 tonnes of bunker oil, and truck axles with army type tires




First Nations on B.C.'s North Coast are appealing for help after an oily slick believed to be linked to a long-sunken U.S. military transport ship appeared on local waters.

The Gitga'at Nation of Hartley Bay announced Tuesday that a commercial pilot has reported a fuel slick about 60 metres wide and between 3.2 and eight kilometres long in Grenville Channel, south of Prince Rupert.

http://www.cbc.ca/ne...-grenville.html

[Mike K.]

One of the largest oil spills in North America in recent years just happened and chances are you haven't heard a peep about it.

22,000 barrels of oil spilled into a northern Alberta muskeg. Read more from the Globe at http://www.theglobea...article4219809/

[sebberry]

I wonder if gas would be any cheaper if they stopped spilling it all.