Natural Resources committee  I'm not sure that there have been any specific initiatives on the part of the government to modernize the refineries. Much like in Canada, there are considerations towards, for example, making even more stringent the sulphur limits in fuel products. That, if done, would bring abo

Natural Resources committee  The cost of a standby refinery per se would be prohibitive, to say the least.

Natural Resources committee  I think a key recommendation is—and the word was mentioned just a few minutes ago—harmonization. Whatever product quality standards are contemplated in Canada, it's very important that there be a harmonization of those with the United States. The implementation of sulphur reducti

Natural Resources committee  The products that are produced by Canadian and indeed North American refineries have pretty much the highest-quality standards of any products in the world. They are certainly on a par with Europe. If you look at the products sold in other countries, they don't necessarily meet t

Natural Resources committee  I'm not sure I have a great deal to add other than the fact that over the course of the past several decades, a lot of the investment going into refineries has been in order to comply with increasingly stringent quality demands imposed on the industry. I would argue that the mand

Natural Resources committee  Yes. Particularly in the case of gasoline in North America, there's widespread belief that this will be the case. Globally, of course, demand for crude oil is forecast to grow, but it's very important to state and understand that refinery capacity has always been built, and for g

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

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  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  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  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.