Alberta plans $7B refinery

[CHIMO]

Alberta plans $7B refinery
Would be on par with giants in U.S. Gulf Coast

CALGARY - The Alberta government and 16 industry sponsors are looking at building a giant, $7-billion refinery complex near Edmonton, the first in North America in a quarter century.

The group, led by Alberta Economic Development, is getting down to the finer details of an ambitious strategy that started two years ago and could lead to a 300,000 barrels-a-day refinery and petrochemical complex that could be in operation as early as 2012.

Plans call for the plant to be built near Red Water, a small community east of Edmonton. About 70% would be dedicated to processing bitumen (the tar-like substance derived from petroleum) into such fuel products as diesel, gasoline and kerosene. The remaining 30% would produce petrochemicals such as ethylene and propylene, used to make plastics, and synthesis gas for ammonia, used to produce fertilizer.

http://www.canada.com/national/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=8af99ab2-f520-442f-b314-7f4d6a6dc9ac

Interesting. Notice that the some of biggies are not named.

The study is backed by such industry heavyweights as Agrium, BP PLC, Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., Enbridge Inc., EnCana Corp., Nova Chemicals Ltd., Petro-Canada, TransAlta Corp. and TransCanada Corp.

[achtung_circus]

1. Sigh

"While companies thinking of building refineries have faced the not-in-my-backyard effect, the four municipalities surrounding the proposed complex near Edmonton are among its most enthusiastic proponents.

Larry Wall, head of Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association, said the region has set aside a large land spread for industrial development. Already, it is the home of Shell's Scotford refinery and a fertilizer operation run by Agrium Inc. He said the association would like to see the area develop into a refinery hub on the same scale as the U.S. Gulf Coast, feeding off the huge increase in bitumen production from the Athabasca oilsands located 300 kilometres north."


The downwind communities are NOT supportive. The Industrial Heartland Association was put into place over the objections of residents- I know I went to the meetings. It was one of the factors that influenced me to move out of the area.

Scotford doubled its capacity a few years ago with a new pipeline from Fort Mac to supply feedstock.

The Hutterite colony across the highway started building a 3,000 sow hog barn. The ability to approve or deny what Alberta calls ILO or Intensive Livestock Operations was removed from the County Council and handed to Alberta Agriculture food and Rural Development.

Redwater already has a lot of gas development and the nitrogen fertilizer plant. Fort Saskatchewan has huge chemical plants, especially Dow.

They are paving paradise.



Alberta is going for shit. I spent most of my life there, won't go back.

On Edit: quotation marks, oopsie

[CHIMO]

2. Interesting None The Less

When one looks at the ironies.

The headline would almost have one expect a 3P type of situation but it is not mentioned anywhere in the article.

Years ago Dow seemed to break the strangle hold that Red Deer had on the ethylene from natural gas, so now it is everyone's, while the article mentions ethylene as one of the products.

The government didn't seem to do anything to keep Celanese in the Provence, and all the products that were possible from availability of natural gas are now produced elsewhere, closer to other markets with the shipment of natural gas south.

One of the limiting factors on new oil sands plants is the price for the heavy oil, that can be sold at quite a discount, so maybe no one is willing to make an investment in heavy oil, when they look at the numbers and realize that there is an excess of heavy oil and the refiners and walking away with all the goodies?

Next up will be a fall in oil prices and the oil sands companies running to governments for funding in finishing the plants or in subsidies to keep the plants open.(Everything old is new again)