Alberta Cuts Push Prices Too High

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

Alberta’s output-cut mandate may be driving oil prices too high

There's just no way to make some people happy, is there? it's like there's all the choice in the world for refiners needing heavy crude.

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

1 hour ago, Marina Schwarz said:

Alberta’s output-cut mandate may be driving oil prices too high

There's just no way to make some people happy, is there? it's like there's all the choice in the world for refiners needing heavy crude.

Are they talking in Canadian $ or US$?

And Gov. of Alberta is trying to play "OPEC". Where is the free market in Canada now?

From an oil marketing and sales point of view, they can offer to sell their crude oil FOB from their rail tanker cars sites or sell it FIP (free into pipeline) via the Keystone Hardisty to Houston. Then the buyers pay for the pipeline throughput.

Or better yet make deals with US exporters and develop a Canadian-US blend for exports from the Gulf Coast to Asia, or build your own pipelines going to Western ports in Canada, so your prices wont be so depressed.!

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

Just now, ceo_energemsier said:

Are they talking in Canadian $ or US$?

And Gov. of Alberta is trying to play "OPEC". Where is the free market in Canada now?

From an oil marketing and sales point of view, they can offer to sell their crude oil FOB from their rail tanker cars sites or sell it FIP (free into pipeline) via the Keystone Hardisty to Houston. Then the buyers pay for the pipeline throughput.

Or better yet make deals with US exporters and develop a Canadian-US blend for exports from the Gulf Coast to Asia, or build your own pipelines going to Western ports in Canada, so your prices wont be so depressed.!

That Alberta refinery wont do much to improve the price of crude oil because it will depend on how long it will take to build the refinery and what the capacity of the refinery is and what Albertan's would want to pay for their refined products at their local stations.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

I wouldn't say Notley is playing OPEC, she's trying to work with what she has. After all, Alberta cannot unilaterally force B.C. to accept the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. 

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

1 hour ago, Marina Schwarz said:

After all, Alberta cannot unilaterally force B.C. to accept the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. 

If Canadians could remove Trudeau from the equation, betcha pipelines would expand real darn quick.

 

[Clement Obarise + 1]

Alberto's high input cut will definitely lead to high prices of oil and particularly at this yuletide that most oil companies will be on break and this tends to shortfall in production at Alberto. OPEC needs to wade in and ameliorate the situation before it gets out of hand.

[Marina Schwarz + 1,576]

32 minutes ago, Tom Kirkman said:

If Canadians could remove Trudeau from the equation, betcha pipelines would expand real darn quick.

 

But British Columbia. But protests. But spills.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

3 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

If Canadians could remove Trudeau from the equation, betcha pipelines would expand real darn quick.

 

Probably not.  I don't think you have the full picture of the current state of Canadian politics. 

Just some highlights:  Right now, three Provinces contribute about $20 billion (from their oil production, basically as an extraction tax) into a pool known as the Equalization Payments Fund.  The bulk of that money goes, and has always gone, to the Province of Quebec: of that 20 billion, Quebec takes 13 billion.  It infuriates Alberta that it is paying what Alberta views as extortion payments to Quebec when Quebec has this vast resource of hydropower that is not getting taxed into the Equalization Payments pool. Things have gotten so bad that there is public discussion in Alberta about boycotting all Quebec products - including that Canadian favorite, the Kraft Dinner, a concoction made of Kraft macaroni and Kraft cheese, in a plant in Montreal. 

Meanwhile, Quebec is a big consumer of oil products including gasoline and diesel.  Quebec buys that oil from disreputable regimes in the Middle East, importing the stuff via a pipeline from Portland, Maine. They have no qualms about doing that.  Now, the Albertans would like to move Alberta oil, OK WCS heavy oil, to the refinery in Montreal and sell it, to be used as the feedstock for that consumption.  The premier of Quebec has now haughtily declared that there is no need for a Canada East pipeline, and Quebec will buy its crude from he ME. 

The Albertans are infuriated.  Next, the two Provinces will start boycotting each others' products.  With that atmosphere, you can forget about the Energy East pipeline to Montreal, and it hardly is a function of Trudeau.