Evidence of meeting #23 for Natural Resources in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was refineries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
That's correct.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
—it has to go through some type of cracking process. It has to have a diluent added to it. Where does that diluent come from?
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
Well, some of it will come out of, say, refineries; it's a light end product out of a refinery.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
So other refineries such as midstream gas processors and so on will be providing the diluent that's needed. Through that refining capacity that we already have and all the jobs associated with that refining capacity, and the gas industry providing diluent to the oil industry, so that it can ship its upgraded synthetic product overseas.... It's not just actually pulling raw product out of the ground and shipping it off; it's not like we just chopped down the tree and sent it down the road, right?
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
You make a very good point. There's an enormous amount of labour and technology involved in extracting bitumen and putting it in a form that can be placed in a pipeline and transported.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
That's right. That's the point I'm trying to make here. Detractors of some of these pipeline projects we talk about, whether that's Keystone or the Northern Gateway pipeline, say that we're simply sending raw products and outshipping all of these jobs, but the reality is that there are thousands and thousands of jobs dependent upon this.
Another example of what the detractors might say is that, for example, if the Gateway pipeline is actually created, it will only have about nine to 50 people actually looking after the long-term maintenance of the pipeline once the initial batch or glut of construction jobs is completed. But the reality is that 400,000 or 500,000 barrels a day is going to result not just in pipeline maintenance jobs, it's going to result in a huge amount of jobs, not only in the construction of or further expansion of the oil sands development in order to meet the demand to fill that pipeline, but also in the ongoing jobs associated with extraction, processing, and upgrading of that bitumen.
How many jobs would that be? Mr. Quinn, I don't know if you're uniquely positioned to answer this question or not, but in order to produce half a million barrels a day in the oil sands, how many jobs would that result in for oil sands workers across our country?
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
I wouldn't even want to try to take a guess at that—
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
—because I don't know. I'm here to represent refining.
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
What I will say is that our biggest challenge in Suncor in the next five years.... We have a growth plan. Today, in fact, our upgrading of bitumen into synthetic crudes is pretty much balanced with our extraction of raw bitumen. We are a big upgrading company. We will produce more bitumen going forward than we will upgrading capacity, but still, we are very much about upgrading to synthetics.
Our biggest challenge going forward to deliver that vision is the need for thousands of skilled jobs, in Alberta in particular, but they resonate across the country for suppliers of goods and services to that construction effort and to that ongoing production effort as we go forward. There is no shortage in the requirement for skilled jobs in this country going forward.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Many of the things that are built for all of these upgraders and so on aren't necessarily built in Alberta either, are they? They're built all across the country.
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
Yes, there are some good statistics out there—I don't have them with me today—about the expected impact on each of the provinces in this country from investments that will take place in Alberta around the oil sands.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I now want to address the issue of energy dependency. It's true that Canada is a net exporter of oil products, right? In this particular case, we're talking about oil pipelines. This is the refining capacity we're talking.... Is Canada a net exporter of oil?
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
Yes, and of refined products as well.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
In your estimation, does this mean that Canada is dependent upon other nations for oil?
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
You know, again...no, not totally.
Conservative
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
It's economics and balancing at each end of the country how we manage our network.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Absolutely, and if worst came to worst and we weren't able to import oil on the east coast, for whatever reason, it would simply be a matter of a simple change in how we distribute the products we produce here in Canada, in order to make sure everybody has access to the fuel sources they need. Is that not true?
General Manager, Integration and Planning, Refining and Marketing, Suncor Energy Inc.
Yes, we've actually gone so far in recent years.... It's not very economical most of the time, but we have put western oil on a tanker on the west coast. We've moved it through the Panama Canal and have brought it into Montreal to run, in part to test what Montreal's capability is with respect to western crude quality. So yes, those things are always possible when you're faced with a real shortage.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Leon Benoit
Your time is up.
Mr. Anderson, you can ask Mr. Calkins' question if you can read his mind and know what it is.
Go ahead, please, for up to five minutes.