I'll turn to Mr. Bloomer now with a similar question in terms of Canada's disadvantages in the oil market. We've all heard that one of the big pressures to build pipelines in Canada, especially getting them to tidewater, is to overcome this price disadvantage that we face because we can only sell within the North American market.
As I was mentioning in an earlier question to other witnesses, that price differential seems to be shrinking somewhat. There is also some indication that even if we did have a pipeline or pipelines to tidewater, selling that oil to other markets, particularly the Asian market, there would still be a considerable price differential.
I was looking at the Mexican Maya sour crude benchmark, which apparently over the past 15 months was priced on average $8.73 less in the Far East than it was in the United States. What economic advantages will pipelines give Canadian oil producers and will that be enough to make them competitive?