Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, good morning. Thank you for your invitation to appear before this committee on the subject of the current and future state of oil and gas pipelines and refining capacity in Canada. My firm, MJ Ervin and Associates, which is a division of

Natural Resources committee  No. Relative to BRIC countries I don't, although certainly we already have seen countries such as India building very large, very technically advanced refineries—Reliance Industries Limited being one, for example. They are building. The refinery configurations they are putting in

Natural Resources committee  When a refinery goes offline unexpectedly, it certainly does create a disruption in supply. Refineries so affected have to very quickly scramble for makeup supply, which they will achieve by importing from the United States, bringing in product from other regions, often by rail,

Natural Resources committee  As per my comments, I think the outlook is generally towards the continued decline of capacity as a result of what is inevitably going to be a declining gasoline demand. Given that gasoline constitutes about 40% of production of all petroleum products, that is going to be weighti

Natural Resources committee  I'll take a crack at that first.

Natural Resources committee  I'll talk about the consequences of not building the Keystone XL pipeline or the Northern Gateway pipeline. That would really close in production of Canada's oil sands to a significant degree. The line 9 reversal would by no means be sufficient to continue the progression of Can

Natural Resources committee  I don't want to speak for the industry, but the need for an integrated strategy is acknowledged. There is such an interplay among those factors you mentioned—nuclear, biofuels, and other alternative sources—and that will certainly have a big impact on decisions made in the refini

Natural Resources committee  I wasn't here to actually hear that testimony and the background to it, but certainly all regions are depleting a non-renewable resource. That's the only thing I can add to that, without being provided with any more context.

Natural Resources committee  There are two kinds of products emanating from oil sands production. Alberta produces a great deal of conventional crude oil as well, some of which goes to the United States. But a great deal of it is used in Canadian refineries as well. Yes, bitumen is exported to the United Sta

Natural Resources committee  No, it's not.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, indeed.

Natural Resources committee  It really does come down to price. In the past I would have referred to gasoline and diesel as being regional in terms of market nature, but over the last decade it really has become a global market, much in the same way that crude has always been a global market. You have to be

Natural Resources committee  Certainly the capacity of refineries in North America was not sufficient to export until 2008. As some testimony here has illuminated, the U.S. has become an exporter of petroleum products as a result of that excess capacity. The fact is that with low crack spreads that excess c

Natural Resources committee  Well, certainly the advent of the renewable fuel standards displacing about 10% of gasoline production in the United States and somewhere between 5% and 8% of gasoline production in Canada is one factor. That is kind of a one-time thing. In terms of ongoing future trends, automo

Natural Resources committee  The choice of feedstock for any refinery is based on a vast number of considerations. There are very sophisticated computer programs that do that sort of planning. But the trade-off between taking western crude and available crudes from other sources like crudes really comes down