General Interest Story: Canada's Oil Landlocked Without Those Pipelines

Link here to the Calgary Herald.

Canadian faux environmentalists don't want pipelines in their country either.

This tough talk is part of the billion-dollar problem challenging the federal and provincial dreams of Canada becoming an energy superpower: While the country has massive reserves and an eager marketplace, it has huge hurdles to get product to consumers.

Today, Alberta produces about 2.2 million barrels of oil per day, with around 1.7 million in the form of bitumen.

As billions of dollars of investment pours into the area north of Fort McMurray, oil-sands production is expected to double by 2020, and grow to five million barrels a day a decade after that.

If no new pipelines are built - an unlikely but possible scenario - infrastructure capacity will run out by 2016.

Already, lack of pipeline space and access to a wider range of customers means western Canadian oil is selling at a steep discount compared to the world price.

And so it goes.

Having said that, the article gives a nice overview of Canadian pipeline system.