Canada's largest refinery

ferniesnow · Oct 8, 2018

So, please explain to me how the Irvings in St. John, New Brunswick have the largest oil refinery in Canada. It doesn't make sense. Surely there is more oil produced in the west and the imported oil isn't that many barrels, so what drives this refinery?

Mike270412 · Oct 8, 2018

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/explosion-fire-saint-john-oil-refinery-1.4854460

lilduke · Oct 8, 2018

Oil comes from super tankers from the middle east and by rail from north dakota.

Probably some from the hibernia oil field as well I would think.

Caper11 · Oct 8, 2018

ferniesnow said:
So, please explain to me how the Irvings in St. John, New Brunswick have the largest oil refinery in Canada. It doesn't make sense. Surely there is more oil produced in the west and the imported oil isn't that many barrels, so what drives this refinery?

Huh??? The scotford upgrader in Alberta is capable of 250 000 bbd in itself.
There is approx 1million BBD capacity of refining in Alberta. I don’t understand your comment.

Caper11 · Oct 8, 2018

lilduke said:
Oil comes from super tankers from the middle east and by rail from north dakota.

Probably some from the hibernia oil field as well I would think.

Yep the lac magantic train derailment came from the Bakken oil fields on its way to the Irving refinery.

Im unsure if the irvings still own there own fleet of supertankers.

ferniesnow · Oct 8, 2018

Canada imports 700,000 barrels/day. Canada produces 3.2 million barrels/day. So that is only 20% imported to the east coast. So why is the largest refinery on the east coast?

skegpro · Oct 8, 2018

Caper11 said:
Yep the lac magantic train derailment came from the Bakken oil fields on its way to the Irving refinery.

Im unsure if the irvings still own there own fleet of supertankers.

Are you sure?
I thought it was diluent.....
Hence the big fire.
Crude oil wouldn't produce those results....

lilduke · Oct 8, 2018

ferniesnow said:
Canada imports 700,000 barrels/day. Canada produces 3.2 million barrels/day. So that is only 20% imported to the east coast. So why is the largest refinery on the east coast?

Ontario and Quebec burn lots of it.

skegpro · Oct 8, 2018

ferniesnow said:
Canada imports 700,000 barrels/day. Canada produces 3.2 million barrels/day. So that is only 20% imported to the east coast. So why is the largest refinery on the east coast?

Your confused by refined product vs produced oil.

Not all oil produced finds its way to a refinery within Canada.

Irving is the biggest refinery because they supply NE Canada and and some of the NE States.

They import extremely cheap feedstock barrels from countries like Venezuela and Saudi. So there refined margins are the best in the league.

Caper11 · Oct 8, 2018

skegpro said:
Are you sure?
I thought it was diluent.....
Hence the big fire.
Crude oil wouldn't produce those results....

No it was light crude. (Condensate)

skegpro · Oct 8, 2018

Caper11 said:
No it was light crude. (Condensate)

Light crude and condensate are two different things.

Diluent and Condensate are one in the same........

skegpro · Oct 8, 2018

Diluted bitumen.

Condensate/diluent + bitumen

Also know as dilbit.

Anyways.

I am amazed that bitumen burnt like that.

WCTHEMI · Oct 8, 2018

Caper11 said:
Huh??? The scotford upgrader in Alberta is capable of 250 000 bbd in itself.
There is approx 1million BBD capacity of refining in Alberta. I don’t understand your comment.

An upgrader and a refinery are completely different plants.

skegpro · Oct 8, 2018

WCTHEMI said:
An upgrader and a refinery are completely different plants.

That's the problem.
1% of the population understands this.

And then some smart ass says yeah but NWR is an upgrader and they make diesel..........

Caper11 · Oct 8, 2018

skegpro said:
Diluted bitumen.

Condensate/diluent + bitumen

Also know as dilbit.

Anyways.

I am amazed that bitumen burnt like that.

Humm I also do not recall it being Dilbit in the stories.
When it happened, I remember the news called it condensate.

The Bakken Formation is light crude API of 40-43, Condensate is 45-70 API

Dilbit is heavy crude API of 20-23.

Caper11 · Oct 8, 2018

WCTHEMI said:
An upgrader and a refinery are completely different plants.

And now common on the same site on a high conversation refinery.

sirkdev · Oct 9, 2018

The communist broadcasting corporation yesterday said it was in the diesel production part of the plant.

skegpro · Oct 9, 2018

Caper11 said:
Humm I dont also do not recall it being Dilbit in the stories.
When it happened, I remember the news called it condensate.

The Bakken Formation is light crude API of 40-43, Condensate is 45-70 API

Dilbit is heavy crude API of 20-23.

WCS is Dilbit and like you stated way different densities than Bakken crude.

But still pure condensate is an entirely different product.

Good luck getting a rail car of alberta crude to light off.

mathrulz · Oct 9, 2018

ferniesnow said:
Canada imports 700,000 barrels/day. Canada produces 3.2 million barrels/day. So that is only 20% imported to the east coast. So why is the largest refinery on the east coast?

Supply / Demand.... The US north-east has a huge population base to provide for. Irving fills the vast portion of this demand. Most other regions in North America have multiple supply providers (i.e. Sarnia, Oklahoma, Texas, Alberta - lots of different refiners in these regions). The Irving’s thrive where they can have a monopoly and control absolutely everything. They’re one of the biggest land owners in the NE US, the government had to make rules to stop them from taking even more.

Also, access to tide water means they have the option to compete and price their raw materials and finished products in a global market - we all know that story here in AB / BC... So east coast it is.

52weekbreak · Oct 9, 2018

I was curious about refining capacity as well.

https://www.oilsandsmagazine.com/projects/canadian-refineries

And here are the US refineries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_United_States

Canada's largest refinery

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