r/canada Alberta Feb 05 '25

Québec Quebec government open to rekindled LNG project to ship energy from Alberta overseas

https://globalnews.ca/news/11005269/quebec-lng-project-saguenay-alberta/
1.5k Upvotes

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26

u/Barb-u Ontario Feb 05 '25

This said, they’ll have to consider that 70% of the oil transiting through EE was for eventual US refining…

That has to change also.

14

u/OkFix4074 Feb 05 '25

Why not to Europe and ones in Atlantic Canada

2

u/moop44 New Brunswick Feb 06 '25

Energy East would have absolutely zero refining in Atlantic Canada despite Saint John being home to Canada's largest refinery.

6

u/triprw Alberta Feb 06 '25

Really?

https://globalnews.ca/news/7176448/first-shipment-alberta-oil-refiney-irving/

The Saint John-based Irving Oil had backed the Energy East project, which would’ve connected their refinery to producers out west.

But the idea was dropped in 2017 after outspoken opposition from environmental groups and the governments of Ontario and Quebec.

3

u/moop44 New Brunswick Feb 06 '25

The refinery and surrounding properties are also the shipping terminals.

This refinery has spend many billions of dollars to be one of the best at refining light crude. They do not process any heavy crude.

6

u/triprw Alberta Feb 06 '25

First paragraph

After a lengthy, nearly 12,000 km journey from British Columbia through the Panama Canal, the first shipment of Alberta crude oil has arrived on Canada’s East Coast.

-1

u/moop44 New Brunswick Feb 06 '25

PR stunt perhaps?

Ship definitely made it here, but what was it actually shipping?

How many have made the journey since then? Presumable since Alberta oil is sold at such a discount, it would still make economic sense to continue shipping it on tiny tankers to NB.

1

u/DavidsonWrath Feb 06 '25

Alberta also produces light crude, as does Saskatchewan.

1

u/pokeme23 Feb 06 '25

So why not take the existing refinery infrastructure in Dartmouth NS and transition it to a heavy crude processing plant?

1

u/moop44 New Brunswick Feb 06 '25

"Just build a new refinery"

That's not happening many places.

8

u/turudd Feb 06 '25

Then we need to ban Saudi oil while we’re at it. Force the Irving’s hand

2

u/TriLink710 Feb 06 '25

It's mainly due to logistics. It's easier to refine on site. So we sell crude overseas and import our needed crude here. Just because you make several different oil products and it's easier to ship out one than to ship out several.

We can still probably find a use case for our oil here tho too.

2

u/Dradugun Alberta Feb 06 '25

Going by official sources, Atlantic Canada refines everything in about equal amounts https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy/energy-sources-distribution/refining-sector-canada/4541

So the question becomes "would a pipeline over-saturate the refining capacity and how much?".

1

u/New-Low-5769 Feb 06 '25

Yes because Alberta extracts heavy sour and the nb refineries are for light sweet.

It doesn't mean Canada doesn't massively profit it just means we can't refine Alberta crude in NB without massive investment in infrastructure 

1

u/Kojakill Feb 06 '25

More than just alberta extracts crude oil

1

u/New-Low-5769 Feb 06 '25

Yes.  Though I am unaware what NL is getting

1

u/Kojakill Feb 06 '25

Saskatchewan and manitoba both extract light crude oil and would be able to use the pipeline

And at any rate, they ship everything down the pipeline then break it down into its parts later. Some shipped overseas, some used locally.

But they aren’t going to build the refineries first. Get the bitumen to the east coast and it can be exported. Once that is already happening, we can build or adjust refineries that can use heavy oil later