I kinda like pet-chem if we’re going to do more upgrading - and sure enough we’re seeing activity in the space.
Refineries produce gasoline (for old cars), diesel (for old trucks), and oils (there’s alternatives). Refineries are for antiquated tech that were trying to phase out IMO.
Upgrading light ends (methane, ethane, propane, etc) are what I’d be investing in if I was looking at fossil fuels investment. We have LOTS of gas plants sweetening and fractionating that stuff so the product streams are there and the emissions intensity of that end is WAY better than liquids.
Dow is building a huge ethane cracker to produce polyethylene. IPL has the Heartland petrochemical complex that’s going to be soaking up immense amounts of propane to produce polypropylene pellets. I haven’t checked what Nova is up to lately, but I can promise you they’re looking to grow in the space.
I don’t love polymers, but we COULD recycle it if we were smart and unlike combustion where everything ends up in the atmosphere, a landfill full of plastic is actually carbon sequestration when you think about it.
Methane (natural gas) is worth approximately nothing at the moment, but coastal LNG exports will help China et al. ween off coal while they continue to build out renewables and Europe needs LNG for similar reasons and timescales.
I fully agree that less oil in general is a good thing, and shifting from heavy oils to lighter oils is also a good thing. But if we’re going to be extracting and using something anyway, I think processing it ourselves is an improvement as well, and it will somewhat help keep the money AB & SK spend on oil in Canada and reduce our dependence on long pipelines and foreign industry.
Reducing our dependence on oil in the first place would definitely be better, but if we only take the best steps we won’t get anywhere.
I kinda like pet-chem if we’re going to do more upgrading - and sure enough we’re seeing activity in the space.
Refineries produce gasoline (for old cars), diesel (for old trucks), and oils (there’s alternatives). Refineries are for antiquated tech that were trying to phase out IMO.
Upgrading light ends (methane, ethane, propane, etc) are what I’d be investing in if I was looking at fossil fuels investment. We have LOTS of gas plants sweetening and fractionating that stuff so the product streams are there and the emissions intensity of that end is WAY better than liquids.
Dow is building a huge ethane cracker to produce polyethylene. IPL has the Heartland petrochemical complex that’s going to be soaking up immense amounts of propane to produce polypropylene pellets. I haven’t checked what Nova is up to lately, but I can promise you they’re looking to grow in the space.
I don’t love polymers, but we COULD recycle it if we were smart and unlike combustion where everything ends up in the atmosphere, a landfill full of plastic is actually carbon sequestration when you think about it.
Methane (natural gas) is worth approximately nothing at the moment, but coastal LNG exports will help China et al. ween off coal while they continue to build out renewables and Europe needs LNG for similar reasons and timescales.
Source - random internet person
I fully agree that less oil in general is a good thing, and shifting from heavy oils to lighter oils is also a good thing. But if we’re going to be extracting and using something anyway, I think processing it ourselves is an improvement as well, and it will somewhat help keep the money AB & SK spend on oil in Canada and reduce our dependence on long pipelines and foreign industry.
Reducing our dependence on oil in the first place would definitely be better, but if we only take the best steps we won’t get anywhere.