Low petroleum prices mean new projects are on pause, but existing production won’t disappear
The oilsands are producing more than two million barrels per day from long-term projects that are very difficult to shut in. The transport network is like a game of whack-a-mole: One access point is knocked down, others pop up. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)
There is some soul searching going on in the oilpatch this week in the aftermath of the U.S. rejection of Keystone XL. Would a carbon tax have changed things? A gentler hand with the politics? How much of the U.S. decision was connected to increases in their own domestic production?
What they aren’t asking is how to get oilsands product to market. Because it’s getting there, in ways both obvious and unexpected. The oilsands have lots of problems, like low prices and high costs. But right now, market access is pretty far down the list.
Oil is even being floated on barges down the Mississippi, though this barge was hit by a tow boat in September. (The Associated Press)
A slow boat down the Mississippi
“There is sufficient capacity to move all our production,” said Greg Stringham, vice-president of oilsands and markets with Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP). “There hasn’t been any production that has been shut in because of pipeline capacity.”
In the years since Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008, Canadian oil exports to the U.S. have increased by more than a million barrels a day. Rail has picked up some of that slack, maxing out at 165,000 barrels a day in 2014. It was around half that in the most recent quarter.
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