CN is considering shipping crude oil by rail from Alberta to B.C.

So it starts. Should have shit canned the Nexen acquisition way back when.

China now wants "its" oil.

Alberta should tax Bitumen that leaves the province.

Fortunately, our rail network is in tip-top shape ... especially in the mountains, where accidents just NEVER happen!

As long as we get paid for the bitumen, what's the difference? Or is it okay to take $15 billion from someone and then not let them get anything from their investment?

On the surface, this could be good for us, because we'll get full price for the bitumen, instead of selling it south of the border for a discount. Sure, there are environmental risks, but as I said a year or so ago, if BC rejected the pipeline, companies would just ship it via rail.

I'm perfectly ok with ruining the PRC's day/year/decade. So yeah I'd block this for the shits and giggles alone. Nevermind the environmental and safety issues.



With no pipeline the risks of disaster are far greater. BC was shitting bricks over a potential pipeline, how do you think this is going to go over?

Exactly how they wanted it to. It's their right to refuse a pipeline, but like Boots - I warned a long time ago that no pipeline meant that it would ship by truck or by rail. But it will ship.

Just out of curiosity, could a Provincial government stop CN from transporting?

Don't they have some sort of deal with the federalis?

This stuff happens when you fight a pipeline being pushed by demand. Refuse rail and they will take it by truck. Only hope for BC is that they place extremely tough standards on the pipeline and keep it away from vulnerable zones.

Why? Do you have something against employment for Canadians?

It's not your oil or did you buy some shares?

Even Trudeau likes the Nexen acquisition. Looks like you will be voting NDP in 2015

https://justin.ca/justin-trudeau-why-th ... or-canada/

"Why is the CNOOC-Nexen deal good for Canada? Because Chinese and other foreign investors will create middle class Canadian jobs. Foreign investment raises productivity, and hence the living standards of Canadian families. More fundamentally, it is in Canada’s interest to broaden and deepen our relationship with the world’s second largest economy."

I don't think Trudeau is dumb enough to think CNOOC wasn't going to ship oil to China. or is he

Exactly how they wanted it to. It's their right to refuse a pipeline, but like Boots - I warned a long time ago that no pipeline meant that it would ship by truck or by rail. But it will ship.

BC folk seem to have the impression that they can block oil exports from travelling through their province by opposing the proposed pipelines. Unfortunately I don't think that is the case and all that will end up happening is that the oil will be shipped by other means; in this case by a less safer means. As I've echoed Dr. Celeb sentiment on this before myself, companies will find a way to transport their product out to the coast one way or another. There's just too much money at stake for them not to find a way and the only way BC can prevent oil from travelling through their province would be to basically close their boards which I don't even think is even possible.

BC residents may have delayed the construction of a few pipelines but the planning and permitting is still continuing on them. As I've said before it's only a matter of time before they get built. If they don't get built I hope BC is prepared to see hordes of oil filled rail cars going through their pristine valleys.

We've been through this already. Though the probability of a spill is higher with rail than a pipeline, the consequence is much lower (because broken rail cars spill less product than broken pipelines). The overall risk (probability times consequence) is lower for rail.

Besides, that isn't the big issue anyway. The big issue is oil tankers in the Douglas Channel / Kitimat Arm. If the rail transportation results in the same amount of oil tanker traffic there will still be lots of environmental concern. Although Rupert is a lot better choice than Kitimat.

The Conservtives need to do is start taking the environment seriously. Federal ministers calling environmentalists enemies of the state won't gt you far out here. Environmental stewardship is an issue in BC and always has been.

I'd have to argue with that point. Yes it's true to some degree that trail based spill are normally smaller but they are far more frequent. I quickly goggled "train oil spill" and there were a number of spills over 4000 bbls just last year. Compare that to Kalamazoo River oil spill which is one of the largest recorded on-land spills due to a pipeline rupture which released around 20,000 bbls. Or even the numbers from Lac-Mégantic are coming in as high as 35,000+ bbls.

The only reason we haven't seen the big numbers from railway spills is that historically we haven't been shipping that much by rail. Just wait until you start seeing larger amounts being moved by rail, I'll bet a 20,000 bbl spill because of a derailment isn't too far in our future.

Nexen didn't employ anybody before they were bought? Didn't know that.



Quote where I said it was my oil.



Considering that I don't think much of the heir to the Liberal throne, I don't give two squats that he likes it.

And we've all ready been through this point as well. Personally as someone in the industry I would argue for the opposite which I realize sounds pretty counter intuitive. If we could start replacing some of the older corroded lines we would lessen the chance of lines breaking to begin with. The problem is right now that companies can't get approval for twinning lines (or "looping" as we call it) due to the steeped environmental regulations that they are faced with. Most lines have a life span of about 20 years depending on the product they carry but most of the larger NEB regulated lines are far older than that.

Add to that the fact most transport companies are way over capacity due to the back log in approvals for new pipelines. The best example to date that I can think of would be the Cochin pipeline. 15 years ago when we were putting in the Alliance we couldn't even step over top of the Cochin pipeline because it was so old and rusted out. Kinder Morgan just bought that line (15 years later) and are planning on reversing it because they are over capacity and can't get approval for a new line. That line should have been decommissioned years ago but here we are doing digs on it and patching it up once again. It's a wreck waiting to happen in my opinion.

On the regulation side of things; I don't think we need any more environmental regulations, we all ready have way too many to deal with at the moment to the point where we can barely even build anything. The governments time would be better spent on looking at new regulations regarding the operation and maintenance of the existing and new lines. That is what's going to prevent line breaks. More smart pigging, more inhibitor usage, more stringent guidelines on when a company has to repair a line etc etc. Establishing a new more ridiculous buffer zone for Ferruginous Hawks or Leopard Frogs isn't going to do squat.