Summary
Ontario Premier Doug Ford warned that Canada could cut off energy exports to the U.S. if Donald Trump imposes a proposed 25% tariff on Canadian goods.
Ford emphasized that 60% of U.S. crude oil imports and 85% of electricity imports come from Canada, highlighting the potential impact.
Canadian leaders, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, criticized the tariffs as harmful to both economies, while Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland suggested broader retaliatory measures.
The dispute raises concerns over trade relations and escalating economic uncertainty for both nations.
The thing is we had record breaking production under trump, again under Biden, and most likely will break records again with trump.
Countries play this shell game where they import/export the same product to maximize tax incentives, which just means using fossil fuels to ship fossil fuels all over, or environmentally destructive pipelines.
We export about 125,000,000 barrels of crude a month, and import about 120,000,000 barrels of crude from Canada a month…
What the actual fuck is the point?
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=pet&s=mcrexus1&f=m
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=63564&os=0
Without knowing the specifics, my guess would be that a refinery near the Great Lakes might have a shorter distance, so fewer costs and emissions importing oil from Canada than Texas.
That said, fuckery is really everywhere, so you might be right.
Nope.
https://theodora.com/pipelines/north_america_oil_gas_and_products_pipelines.html
Just piping that shit all over the place like it’s no big deal.
I’m trying to understand your line of thinking and it seems to necessitate accepting that oil isn’t moving between inputs and outputs at the most cost effective way, which would necessitate oil and gas companies intentionally working in a way that isn’t about maximizing profit.
Am I misunderstanding your premise in such a way that I’m inappropriately needing to bake that in?
No. I’m saying because it’s slightly more profitable they pipe it all over, somehow you took the opposite message?
I assumed we didn’t need to talk about why pipelines are bad, did I overestimate?
Like…
Oil pipeline protests have been pretty big news for decades now, I thought everyone commenting on an article about gas pipelines was up to speed.
Quick edit:
Deja Vue…
We had another conversation a week ago where I went over the basics of why oil pipelines are bad, and nothing I explained seemed to have stuck. It was even about Canada/US pipelines too.
Someone else may be able to explain it differently, but I’m not gonna be able to help.
Why would it be more profitable to do it the less efficient way? It costs per mile/km to build pipe.
Yeah but this is America…
Pipelines are so much cheaper than truck, even with massive leaks:
https://www.eenews.net/articles/inspector-weak-pipeline-rules-put-profit-over-safety/
And when it’s bad enough taxpayers bail them out:
https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/investing-america-biden-harris-administration-announces-nearly-200-million-replace
The problem is they put profits over everything. I’m not sure where all this misunderstanding is coming from
Not shipping it would be cheaper yet, though.
I don’t think there’s a misunderstanding here, exactly. You want to shit on pipelines, and that’s okay, but I’m more interested in the how this all fits together economically.
I take you’ve never been affected by a tailing pond or pipeline failure then.
I guess this is why I was confused. The comment you were replying to was saying the justification for impor/exports existing simultaneously was based on the geographical (aka logistical) efficiencies of moving different products to different facilities with different needs.
You appeared to me to be rejecting that justification.
There was a shell game with aluminum a number of years back where truckload ofbit just…moved around…to raise stock prices. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same things happened with oil.
Source.
the crude you are exporting is not the same kind of crude that you’re importing, and depending on what refineries take they can make different products with more or less problems
This is exactly right. Most Canadian crude is actually tar. They have to use lighter grades of oil to dilute it to even be able to pump it.
If they cut us off, we can get more from Venezuela or the price of asphalt goes up.
Our cars, planes, trains, chemical plants, and power stations continue just fine.
Bitumen is not tar. Not technically - that comes from wood or coal - and not in practice. It has a strong bent towards asphalt, heating oil and diesel, but it has a bit of everything, and American refineries crack it into mostly gasoline.
We also produce smaller amounts of light crude, and convert some bitumen into light crude artificially as well.
You have enough domestic production to keep everything running, but you’d basically have nothing left to export if the taps were suddenly off. In practice, Canada would keep it coming and just take a financial hit with 25% tariffs. Other sectors would get messed up way worse.
I was trying to use language that would give the average nontechnical person an idea of the important aspects.
If the average person had Alberta tar sand based “oil” on one hand and technically correct tar on the other, I bet they couldn’t give a shit which was which.
I felt like you implied that it doesn’t translate to fuel, though. That’s the critical difference. So, I replied.
Yeah, Canadian crude is mostly heavy. Do you know where the Americans are sending their light crude (and why they don’t just refine it themselves)?
it looks like they do refine it, just that petroleum products are counted in petroleum exports. these then are sold everywhere, esp to countries that don’t have refineries https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/oil-and-petroleum-products/imports-and-exports.php
so crude is imported but propane, diesel and greases exported. some crude is exported to friendly countries that have no oil but have well developed chemical industries, like south korea or netherlands
OP’s source specifically says crude oil, though.
I see the problem now, the exports are listed in thousands of barrels, not millions like the import source provided.
Not all crude oil is the same.
The US has some pretty premium stuff that can be made into jet fuel and the like, and imports more lower quality stuff that is used for gasoline, etc.
i think you have it backwards, jet fuel and diesel are easier to make and gasoline requires heavier, more energy-intensive processing (like reforming or cracking). jet fuel up to fuel oils are just desulfurized distillates
but you can make it work with either, it just means yield is smaller. rearranging refinery so that it can take different source of crude is a long and expensive process tho
Hmm. Canada doesn’t really have much refining capacity, and you subsidise yours (or so I’ve been told) which is why we send it all down there.
Interesting that your exports are around the same. Where are you exporting to? That might help solve the mystery.
and then i laugh when people talk about keystone coming back to life…heh not with this it aint.
The oil and gas is in certain places of the country, the refineries are in other places in the country, the consumers of oil are all over the country, and both Canada and the US are very big countries which is why there is a lot of moving around.
All in all, there are similar elements to an electrical grid where energy is needed at different times of day or the year, except that it moves slower.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13202-021-01266-3
That’s a “open access” journal specifically for the fossil fuel industry…
https://doaj.org/toc/2190-0566
For $2,190.00 they publish literally fucking anything.
So some industries (like fossil fuels) pay to have a bunch of studies published that all say what they’re doing is necessary and any environmental concerns are completely overblown.
Like…
This behavior isn’t new or rare. But it’s very easy to check.
I wasn’t mentioning that it is isn’t concering (it is), but I am only pushing back on that the suggestion that they would be pushing oil bidirectionally just for fun or profiting off of useless deliveries.