Watts Up With That? by Charles Rotter 8/29/2020
Alberta oil shipped through Panama Canal to Atlantic Canada to avert COVID-19 threat to energy supply
Larry Hughes, Dalhousie University
On July 20, the tanker Cabo de Hornos delivered an estimated 450,000 barrels of crude oil to the Irving Oil refinery’s Canaport storage facilities in Saint John, N.B.
What made Cabo de Hornos’s delivery different was that it was the first time crude oil had arrived in Saint John by ship from Alberta. It came via the Trans Mountain pipeline to the Westbridge Marine Terminal in Burnaby, B.C., and then through the Panama Canal.
By the end of April next year, a second tanker will arrive at Canaport carrying 350,000 to one million barrels of Western Canadian crude oil. In this case, the oil will have come via pipeline from Alberta to a crude oil exporting terminal in Texas or Louisiana.
For most of the Saint John refinery’s 50 years of operation, it has relied on crude oil from sources outside Canada, including Saudi Arabia, the United States, Norway and Nigeria, to meet most of its demand. In 2019, about 80 per cent came from non-Canadian sources, with the remainder from offshore Newfoundland and Labrador by tanker and Western Canada by rail.
Any event — such as a COVID-19 outbreak in any of these oil-supplying countries — that disrupts the flow of crude oil to the refinery threatens the energy security of most people in Atlantic Canada.
Globally, the health of ships’ crews has become an increasingly critical issue since the start of the pandemic. In many countries, fear of COVID-19 on ships has stopped shipboard crews from disembarking and returning home to their families, and new crews from boarding ships.
This is forcing shipboard crews to continue working well beyond the end of their contractual period of employment. Reports of mental anguish, self-harm and suicide have also been reported.
A COVID-19 outbreak in an oil-producing country or on board a tanker could disrupt the flow of crude oil to the Saint John refinery and, consequentially, disrupt the flow of its refined products to most of Atlantic Canada and New England.
More:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/08/29/alberta-oil-shipped-through-panama-canal-to-atlantic-canada-to-avert-covid-19-threat-to-energy-supply/
