Canadian Oil Sands -- Claims That Landlocked Oil Costing Canada Billions In Revenue Are ‘Bogus’, Economists Say -- Financial Post

The Financial Post is reporting:

Politicians call it the “double discount” and it’s supposed to be costing Canada billions of dollars in lost oil revenues.

Last December, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver told a New Brunswick audience Canada was losing “$50 million every single day —$18 to $19 billion every year.”

A month later, Doug Horner, Alberta’s finance minister, raised the figure to about $100 million a day in a speech to a Calgary audience. “Right now, Alberta’s bitumen is fetching more than $40 per barrel less than oil in Mexico or Texas,” he told a Calgary audience.  “Some of our oil is fetching about $50 less than oil from the Middle East.”

Many Canadian politicians have invoked the argument that because western oil is landlocked it’s not fetching international prices and therefore is being sold at a discount. If Canada could build more pipelines such as Keystone XL or the proposed Northern Gateway through British Columbia, it would reach tidewater ports where it would attract world prices, the so-called Brent and West Texas Intermediate prices.

The second part of the discount comes from backlogs at U.S. pipeline terminals that can result in lower prices for some Canadian heavy crude oil.
But is there any truth in the “double discount”?

Go to the linked article for rest of the story.

But be careful with the article. Be sure to read the comments. 

The Canadian oil sands story just got curiouser and curiouser.