Refinery touted to boost Peace oilsands
Proposed bitumen-processing plant would make development worthwhile, says company
Gordon Jaremko, edmontonjournal.com
Published: 11:56 am
EDMONTON - A proposed $2.5-billion refinery in northwestern Alberta will kick-start development in the largely overlooked oilsands around Peace River, the project's sponsor predicts.
The plant will fill in a missing economic link by creating a large new market for bitumen, said Gary Brierley, chief operating officer and a partner in privately owned Bluesky Refining Inc.
Industry has only done pilot plants and experimental technology field trials in the oilsands about 300 kilometres northwest of Edmonton because the location often makes producing bitumen a money-losing proposition, Brierley said.
Peace River output is currently trucked at great expense as far as Lloydminster or Edmonton for upgrading or refining. Costs exceed deeply discounted prices for bitumen as the industry's crudest product, Brierley said.
His firm goes a step beyond most other upgrader projects with its plan for up to 4,000 construction workers to build a 400-employee plant using 50,000 barrels of bitumen a day by 2012 or 2013.
Instead of pumping out synthetic crude for sale to refineries, or the oilsands counterpart to conventional liquid oil, the Bluesky plant would make bitumen into gasoline and ultra low-sulphur diesel.
Pipeline service is available for refined products and new connections are developing to open up the eastern half of the United States for Alberta exports, Brierley said.
U.S. demand for imported gasoline and diesel has jumped to two million barrels per day, he said.
A bitumen refinery stands out as an attractive business proposition, added Brierley, whose credentials include long service at the Syncrude oilsands plant and processing projects elsewhere.
Bluesky would live well on a wide difference in value between Alberta's crudest oil output and refined products, he said.
gjaremko@thejournal.canwest.com
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=050e892f-ef9d-4...
