Tornado Alley (PROG)

[wEaReLeGiOn]

Nonsense.

No one wants it, but Canadian oil companies can sell it in third world countries where environmental rules are not enforced

Also, 5-10% of US gasoline comes directly from oil sands.

This sort of "environmental warriorism" using outright fabrication helps nobody, and does nothing but sprout political adversity.

I noticed desertdrifter made the same sort of nonsensical post on the matter despite having been given the actual information prior.

https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=169180500

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sands

In 2012, Alberta produced about 1,900,000 bbl/d (300,000 m3/d) of crude bitumen from its three major oil sands deposits, of which about 1,044,000 bbl/d (166,000 m3/d) was upgraded to lighter products and the rest sold as raw bitumen. The volume of both upgraded and non-upgraded bitumen is increasing yearly. Alberta has five oil sands upgraders producing a variety of products. These include:[83][84]

Suncor Energy can upgrade 440,000 bbl/d (70,000 m3/d) of bitumen to light sweet and medium sour synthetic crude oil (SCO), plus produce diesel fuel for its oil sands operations at the upgrader.
Syncrude can upgrade 407,000 bbl/d (64,700 m3/d) of bitumen to sweet light SCO.
Canadian Natural Resources Limited (CNRL) can upgrade 141,000 bbl/d (22,400 m3/d) of bitumen to sweet light SCO.
Nexen, since 2013 wholly owned by China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), can upgrade 72,000 bbl/d (11,400 m3/d) of bitumen to sweet light SCO.
Shell Canada operates its Scotford Upgrader in combination with an oil refinery and chemical plant at Scotford, Alberta, near Edmonton. The complex can upgrade 255,000 bbl/d (40,500 m3/d) of bitumen to sweet and heavy SCO as well as a range of refinery and chemical products.
Modernized and new large refineries such as are found in the Midwestern United States and on the Gulf Coast of the United States, as well as many in China, can handle upgrading heavy oil themselves, so their demand is for non-upgraded bitumen and extra-heavy oil rather than SCO. The main problem is that the feedstock would be too viscous to flow through pipelines, so unless it is delivered by tanker or rail car, it must be blended with diluent to enable it to flow. This requires mixing the crude bitumen with a lighter hydrocarbon diluent such as condensate from gas wells, pentanes and other light products from oil refineries or gas plants, or synthetic crude oil from oil sands upgraders to allow it to flow through pipelines to market.

Typically, blended bitumen contains about 30% natural gas condensate or other diluents and 70% bitumen. Alternatively, bitumen can also be delivered to market by specially designed railway tank cars, tank trucks, liquid cargo barges, or ocean-going oil tankers. These do not necessarily require the bitumen be blended with diluent since the tanks can be heated to allow the oil to be pumped out.

The demand for condensate for oil sands diluent is expected to be more than 750,000 bbl/d (119,000 m3/d) by 2020, double 2012 volumes. Since Western Canada only produces about 150,000 bbl/d (24,000 m3/d) of condensate, the supply was expected to become a major constraint on bitumen transport. However, the recent huge increase in US tight oil production has largely solved this problem, because much of the production is too light for US refinery use but ideal for diluting bitumen. The surplus American condensate and light oil is being exported to Canada and blended with bitumen, and then re-imported to the US as feedstock for refineries. Since the diluent is simply exported and then immediately re-imported, it is not subject to the US ban on exports of crude oil. Once it is back in the US, refineries separate the diluent and re-export it to Canada, which again bypasses US crude oil export laws since it is now a refinery product. To aid in this process, Kinder Morgan Energy Partners is reversing its Cochin Pipeline, which used to carry propane from Edmonton to Chicago, to transport 95,000 bbl/d (15,100 m3/d) of condensate from Chicago to Edmonton by mid-2014; and Enbridge is considering the expansion of its Southern Lights pipeline, which currently ships 180,000 bbl/d (29,000 m3/d) of diluent from the Chicago area to Edmonton, by adding another 100,000 bbl/d (16,000 m3/d).[85]