To: russet who wrote (165048 ) 3/7/2012 5:44:35 AM From: raybiese 2 Recommendations Respond to Some corrections are needed here. The article is slanted as it "leaves out" a whole different factor. <In the last decade, US refiners invested billions into upgrading their facilities to accommodate heavier, sourer crude oils.> The Gulf Coast refiners invested in heavy crude refining capacity to handle Mexican and Venezuelan heavy grades (not Canadian heavy crude) in order to get a $10-$20/bbl "grade discount". Over the past several years, the Maya depletion rate was 100K-200k bbl/d per year and Venezuela has been, well, "problematic". So the "urgency" for Canadian heavy grade pipeline capacity to the Gulf Coast creeps up a bit, year by year. en.wikipedia.org eia.gov some en.wikipedia.org A new four-drum coker, part of Wood River Refinery's Coker and Refinery Expansion (CORE) was completed in November 2011[1]. The new coker has a capacity of 65,000 barrels per day and is expected to expand the capacity to handle the bitumen from the Alberta oil sands by nearly 700%. The new Wood River coker's processing capacity is approximately 200,000 - 220,000 barrels per day. The CORE project took about three years to build, with a total cost of US $3.8 billion (US $1.9 billion to Cenovus), and has increased clean product yield by 5% to approximately 85%. While the expansion was undertaken specifically to handle heavy oil imported from Alberta, the refined transportation fuels products are destined for the U.S. Midwest market, including St. Louis and Chicago [1] not Canada. bloomberg.com bloomberg.com bloomberg.com bloomberg.com youtube.com
