Quote:
Originally Posted by buzzards27
Why are we building the Keystone XL? It is my understanding that it is to bring the crude from the Canadian tar sands down to Texas to refine it.
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No. To process it. There is a difference between processing oil and refining oil.
Oil is processed to remove water, sediments, particulate matter and heavy metals, like nickel, vanadium, uranium, mercury etc.
After it is processed, it is either refined or shipped as crude oil to be refined. You only have 49 operating oil refineries in the US and the bulk of those refined intermediate and light oils. You do not have the refining capacity for heavy oils.
Let's look at a specific example.
Tesoro has a refinery in Kenai, Alaska that runs 72,000 barrels per day of North Slope.
They use catalytic hydro-treating as part of the desulfurization process to produce 13,000 barrels of naphtha and feed stock, 10,000 barrels of diesel, 13,000 barrels of gas oil and 14,200 barrels of low pressure feed stock. The rest is slag/coke.
How much gasoline?
ZERO.
Drill, baby, drill.
What part of "high sulfur heavy oil" do you Big Brains fail to understand?
Are you all that dense?
Apparently.
Did I say Tesoro was the only refinery in Alaska? No, I didn't.
What about the BP refinery and the Conoco-Phillips refinery at Prudhoe Bay? The Flint Hills refinery? The two refineries owned by Petro Star, Inc?
Oh, they've been shut down for 20 years.
Again, what part of "high sulfur heavy oil" do you Big Brains fail to understand?
The only thing more useless than low sulfur heavy oil is high sulfur heavy oil. You don't use it for gasoline, because it costs way to much to make and you only get a paltry 9 gallons per barrel.
Most of your heavy oil refineries were shut down, because you have an over-abundance of intermediate refineries that also make asphalt, tar, naphtha/kerosene and such.
Citgo used to run an heavy oil refinery in Paulsboro, New Jersey that made mostly asphalt and tar. They sold it to Nustar who ran it a few years and shut it down. It's been idle for a while.
BP sold half it its interest in a refinery in Toledo, Ohio to Husky, and then Marathon runs a refinery in Canton, Ohio. Both of those use Canadian Hardisty, which is an heavy oil and they labor to produce...
...ZERO GASOLINE.
But they do produce a lot of naphtha, diesel fuel, bunker oil, coke/slag and other stuff.
Western runs two refineries in New Mexico, one at Gallup and the other at Bloomfield. California Heavy. They produce....
....ZERO GASOLINE.
You guys figure it out yet?
Navajo Refining has a facility at Artesia, New Mexico. The run Maya Blend, which is an heavy oil from Mexico.
They produce...
...ZERO GASOLINE.
Still don't get it?
So all you Big Brains are fawning over an oil pipeline running from Canada that will be transporting Canadian Hardisty, an heavy oil.
And that will do what for gasoline prices in the US?
Absolutely nothing, even more so since you aren't going to refine it.
If you all want this pipeline, then let's at least have a little honesty and integrity about it, and admit that heavy oil has no bearing on the price of light oil, which is set by the benchmark Brent Blend, or on intermediate oil, which is set by the benchmark West Texas Intermediate, and also admit that this will have zero affect on gasoline prices, since you don't use heavy oil to produce gasoline.
It will create some jobs, but nearly all union jobs for those who are already steadily employed, and that pipeline jobs are highly specialized in the nature of their skills, so that few if any of those who are currently unemployed will benefit from it.
You can look at the data for TAPS (Trans-Alaskan Pipeline System) that took 9 years to build and see how many people were employed during construction, and then how many people are employed now.
In fact, I'll do that for you, since many of you are too lame to do your own research:
Quote:
Resource Guide for Jobs on TAPS
There are more than 2000 people employed on the Trans Alaska Pipeline System. Alyeska Pipeline Service Company operates the pipeline and has over 800 employees. The rest of the work force are hired by contractors providing necessary work to operate, maintain and support the pipeline.
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[SIZE=2]http://www.alyeska-pipe.com/employment/TAPS%20Resources.asp
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There you go.
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