Re: “Cures have to be balanced”, p. 31, Sept. 25 Gazette.
I have to correct some of the items mentioned in the letter to the editor. First, Mr. Buffet’s quote was “The free market’s the best mechanism ever devised to put resources to their most efficient and productive use.”
Second, in normal situations, we can’t afford to build refineries. Suncor started building one, and walked away after spending $2 billion. Nexen went bankrupt trying to get its upgrader to work, and had to be rescued by CNOOC.
Last year we built an 80,000-barrel-a-day refinery for $9.5 billion. Despite the oil spread being at record levels between Alberta select and WTI, it is still subsidized by the Alberta government. That subsidy will get much worse if pipelines are built.
The writer claims Harper didn’t build a single pipeline to tidewater. The only reason we need pipelines to tidewater is because U.S. oil production has increased, and they don’t need as much of our oil.
In January 2011, the U.S. produced 5.5 million barrels a day, in February 2012 it was 5.7 million, in February 2013 it was seven million, last week it was 11.1 million. Harper can’t approve a pipeline until someone asks for approval. It wasn’t until sometime in 2012, that people realized that we might need to sell our oil to someone else.
It takes a year to draw up plans, and two years for an environmental assessment to be reviewed. The minimum time from when a company decides it should build a new pipeline until it can be approved is three years. Harper was voted out in 2015, three years after companies started realizing they would need pipelines to tidewater.
Harper approved the Northern Gateway pipeline and Trudeau cancelled it, putting in a moratorium for tankers, but only oil tankers, not LNG tankers.
Bob Wilson
Calgary
