Reason #4 Why I Love To Blog-- November 12, 2015

Updates

November 16, 2015: a reader responded to my thoughts on CBR to the west coast, below:

I'll bet $10 against your penny that except for other than minor expansions at existing ports nothing will be built in the next 10 years. This is a report from Paso Robles, CA, central coast California:

In the town south here, Templeton, CA, the train goes right along side the school. No one ever thought that was bad place for the school...until they heard about CBR. It is absolutely positively the hottest discussion topic here in Paso..."we can't allow THAT."

There's a small refinery about 30 miles southwest of here that exports all of it's product to the far east...."we don't get ANY benefit from it."

A few miles farther south is the deeply liberal college town San Luis Obispo home of Cal-Poly, the tracks goes right through the heart of the city.

This is the land of fruit and nuts, and Oregon and Washington are fruit-and-nut wanna-be's. With the newly-elected liberal government in Canada crude oil exports from British Columbia are out of the question.

My understanding is that most of the crude into California is via tankers, mostly from Alaska...which will soon be a thing of the past. We'll just have to ship it in from Mexico and South America...probably add $1.00 a gallon, so we pay $2.00 more per gallon than the rest of USA...not a problem.

Morro Bay is 25 miles west of here - where a huge, maybe 500 MW gas-fired, power station sits idle...as it has for many years. Meanwhile, this past week, plans were announced to build a wind farm 50 miles offshore from Morro Bay.

(Trump thinks people in Iowa are stupid...wait until he checks out California).

Original Post

 

On November 7, 2015, once the Keystone XL was officially dead, I posted this:

Commentators are looking east when they should be looking west. The tea leaves tell me that California is in a world of pain when it comes to oil. The Bakken contributes a small amount, but a significant amount of oil, to California, but with the loss of the Keystone, and the likely loss (and definite delay) of the Sandpiper and the Dakota Access, this is an incredible opportunity for Enbridge CBR and Warren Buffett CBR to start looking at increased shipments to the Far West. Again, all things being equal, California is going to need more Bakken oil.

At the time I wrote it, I was aware that CBR destined for California would go through the Pacific Northwest.

A reader sent me this story this evening, in which Puget Sound Business Journal is reporting just that:

A new report from research group Oil Change International, commissioned by Seattle-based nonprofit think tank the Sightline Institute, found that in Keystone's absence, the oil industry will now likely turn to massive oil-by-rail terminals proposed across the Pacific Northwest as a second-best alternative for transporting the commodity.

Much more at the link, but the point is made.

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A Day Late, And A Dollar Short

I guess it was "Back To The Future" day a few days ago; I missed it -- "a day late, and a dollar short." But I went out and bought the entire trilogy in a metal case at Target a week ago, and finally got around to watching it this week. I watched it over the course of three evenings, and finally finished it tonight. I had forgotten how really good it was. (I'm not sure if I will watch the two sequels; I generally don't care for sequels). I am quite impressed how well the movie holds up over the years. I haven't watched the extras yet; it will be interesting to watch some of the extras.