Natural Resources committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. On behalf of Suncor Energy, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to attend this morning’s meeting, and I look forward to discussing with you how we view our refining business and some of the challenges and opportuni

Natural Resources committee  I probably don't have the answer you are looking for in terms of the numbers. It's certainly something we could.... There is lots of literature out there on this. Certainly, we would be at a cost disadvantage in Canada relative to BRIC countries for sure in terms of labour costs

Natural Resources committee  Let me just talk about Suncor's experience here. Previous to that, of course, we merged with Petro-Canada a few years back and with what the Petro-Canada experience was. The Oakville closure was brought up. That was a refinery in Oakville, Ontario. It came down in 2005. That was

Natural Resources committee  We sure do. In fact, diesel is probably the one we're most concerned about, because it has a tolerance of only 15 parts per million of sulphur delivered into the customer's tank. We actually produce diesel at our sites with probably around five parts per million of sulphur. We

Natural Resources committee  Yes. In fact, our current CEO, Rick George—who, as most people are aware, is stepping down in May, but he is still our CEO—has been quite vocal on the subject and very supportive of a national energy strategy. I think what he would say is that it needs to go beyond energy produc

Natural Resources committee  Absolutely.

Natural Resources committee  I'm not here to speak for the other companies. I'm really not here to speak for Rick either. He is on record for—

Natural Resources committee  It's a heavy oil that's exported. It's blended with diluent or synthetic crude to allow it to flow. It doesn't have sand in it, for example.

Natural Resources committee  No.

Natural Resources committee  It has to be blended with something else, so it's blended with a condensate.

Natural Resources committee  That's correct.

Natural Resources committee  Well, some of it will come out of, say, refineries; it's a light end product out of a refinery.

Natural Resources committee  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.

Natural Resources committee  I wouldn't even want to try to take a guess at that—

Natural Resources committee  —because I don't know. I'm here to represent refining.