THE CASE FOR THE
CANSO NS SUPERPORT
AS THE TERMINUS FOR THE ENERGY EAST PIPELINE
AS THE TERMINUS FOR THE ENERGY EAST PIPELINE
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
Sample of work contained in:
A ‘Canada-First’ Canadian Energy Strategy
to be found elsewhere on this website or see:
https://www.behance.net/portfolio/editor?project_id=5808629
First uploaded February 5, 2014
Last updated April 21, 2015
Original version published as Pipeline to Canso: A Strong Case
in the Halifax ChronicleHerald on January 29, 2014
The proposed Irving Oil/TransCanada Corp. expansion of the Irving Oil Canaport marine terminal in Saint John NB for TransCanada's Energy East pipeline project has access to 128 feet of water depth, sufficient to handle the largest oil tankers.
Aerial View of Canaport Marine Terminal and Storage Tanks near Saint John, NB. Source, Irving Oil.
However, it is located about 450 miles west of Canso NS by marine route and is in the middle of the environmentally-sensitive Bay of Fundy, home to some of the largest tidal variations and reversing tidal bores on Earth.
Bay of Fundy Ecozones. Source; Tourism New Brunswick.
Each day 160 billion tonnes of seawater flows in and out of the Bay of Fundy during each of two tide cycles —more than the combined flow of the world’s freshwater rivers, according to Tourism New Brunswick. A major spill near the expanded Canaport terminal would result in conventional crude or, much, much worse, dilbit being washed up and down the entire Bay of Fundy coastline twice-daily by tides of up to 63 feet.
At least 12 species of whales call the Bay of Fundy home throughout the summer and fall months including pods of endangered North Atlantic right whales which seasonally feed on plankton necessitating a voluntary tanker exclusion zone (dark blue on map above) in the deepest water of the Bay where the whales feed.
However, extending the proposed Energy East pipeline just 300 land miles further east of Saint John NB to the Strait of Canso Superport in Canso NS not only solves Energy East’s crude export marine terminal problems but helps spread the economic benefits of Alberta's crude oil resource, the largest on Earth by far, to all provinces of mainland Atlantic Canada.
Albertans, every one of whom shares in ownership of 81 percent of the mineral rights of the largest crude oil resource on Earth not owned by First Nations, a few private owners, railway lands, and under national parks, want every Canadian to share in the benefits of this immense bounty.
Energy East Pipeline Proposal Showing Extension to Canso, NS.
Source; Mike Priaro. Base map; TransCanada Corp.
A 300-mile extension to Canso NS as shown above, perhaps with a spur line to a revitalized Dartmouth NS refinery, would add less than ten percent to the cost of the proposed Energy East pipeline and could deliver up to 600,000 bbl/d of crude oil to Canso for export.
The Strait of Canso Superport became ice-free year-round with construction of a causeway between the mainland and the island of Cape Breton. The Superport is generally regarded as one of the best and safest deep-water ports on the East Coast, and the closest to Europe, the Suez Canal, and western India.
It is not well-known that shipping routes to the Mumbai terminal in India are shorter from Canada's east coast (9,173 miles from Saint John NB) than from Canada's west coast (12,468 miles from Vancouver BC).
The total distance from Edmonton AB to the Mumbai terminal via the TransMountain pipeline and Vancouver is 13,180 miles with 37 days on the water but only 11,910 miles with 28 days on the water via TransCanada's Energy East proposal and Saint John NB.
Saint John Canaport, Strait of Canso Superport, and the Great Circle Shipping Route.
Source, Mike Priaro. Base Map, Strait of Canso Superport Corp.
However, the distance from Canso NS to Mumbai would be an additional 450 miles shorter, or about one-and-one-quarter days less on the water at 12 knots, than from Saint John NB.
It was reported by the Halifax Chronicle Herald that the Indian firm H-Energy of Mumbai recently secured an option to buy land for an LNG plant and export terminal at Canso NS. Also, Indian High Commissioner Nirmal Verma said on Oct. 1, 2013 that India would like to see the completion of a pipeline to Canada's east coast that would carry Alberta crude to Atlantic Ocean ports. Verma told The Canadian Press that India would consider investing in the proposed Energy East pipeline project if it clears regulatory hurdles and moves ahead.
Husky Energy Inc. announced the sale of one million bbl of light crude from its White Rose field offshore of Newfoundland and Labrador to Indian Oil Corp. during the fourth quarter of 2013. This was India's first purchase of Canadian crude. That crude was likely loaded directly into a tanker from the production platform.
Reliance Industries Ltd. operates the world’s largest, and one of the most sophisticated, oil refinery complexes at Jamnagar on India’s west coast. Its two refineries there can process 1.24 million bbl/d of crude with a heavy crude capacity of 670,000 bbl/d.
Jamnagar Refining Complex. Source, Wikimedia Commons.
NuStar Energy LP of San Antonio TX, with operations in the United States, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, including St. Eustatius in the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, has 37 tanks with a capacity of 7,555,000 bbl, and 2 mooring locations servicing vessels up to 400,000 DWT ( VLCC/ULCC-class tankers of two million bbl capacity) at its Point Tupper NS terminal in the Strait of Canso Superport. These facilities could easily and relatively inexpensively be upgraded and converted to export crude oil, distillates (diesel), gasolines, aviation fuel, intermediate petroleum products and blend components, residual fuels, butane, and condensate.
Aerial View of Part of the Strait of Canso Superport with Nustar Marine Terminal
and Storage Tanks in Far Right Distance with the Atlantic Ocean beyond.
Source, Strait of Canso Superport Corporation.
Finally, Canada’s Atlantic east coast has two environmental factors in its favour aside from the most important one of easily- and safely-accessed deep-water ports with existing refineries and marine oil terminals.
On Canada's west coast, prevailing winds and currents will tend to push or keep any oil spill on-shore, maximizing ecological impact and property damage. On the Atlantic east coast, prevailing winds and currents will tend to push any oil spill out to sea reducing coastal ecological impact and property damage, except in the Bay of Fundy.
"The ingenuity of human stupidity, error, and conceit eventually trumps any and all safety systems"
- Mike Priaro.
One can have the best safety systems on Earth but one can never eliminate the human element.
A large dilbit spill in the Bay of Fundy with an incoming tide will be far more expensive in terms of ecological damages and clean-up costs than the cost of extending the Energy East pipeline to Canso NS. Consider that Enbridge's spill of just 20,000 bbls of dilbit into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan in 2010 has so far cost U$1.2 billion in damages and clean-up costs.
On Canada's west coast, the Northern Gateway and TransMountain pipeline proposals call for the export of dilbit which is much more damaging, toxic, difficult, and costly to clean up than conventional crude, partially-upgraded bitumen, or syncrude. It is less likely that large volumes of dilbit will be exported from the east coast with TransCanada's proposed Energy East project because of the opportunity for potential domestic refinery and petro-chemical capacity to use bitumen as feedstock.
A strong business, environmental and national interest case based on lower marine shipping costs, reduced marine accident risk, re-vitalization of the Dartmouth refinery, investment by India, improved crude export efficiency, and reduced potential for environmental damage should easily justify the cost of extending the Energy East pipeline to Canso.
Furthermore, there may be cost savings, synergies, improved opportunities for industrial development, and reduction of land impact by combining upgrades to the existing AC power transmission lines for the proposed Maritime Link project with the pipeline right-of-way for an Energy East extension to the Canso Superport.
That would result in the creation of the first formal, dedicated energy corridor in Canada.
Proposed Maritime Link power line route. Source; Government of Nova Scotia.
These reasons favour the Strait of Canso Superport as the main Atlantic Canada port for the export of western Canadian crude to Europe, Africa, and western Asia through Suez using Suezmax tankers and the largest VLCC/ULCC-class tankers around the Cape of Good Hope.
The Saint John NB Canaport is better situated and better suited to ship upgraded crude, refined products, and petro-chemicals to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, the Gulf Coast, Latin America, South America, and through the Panama Canal, using Panamax and smaller tankers. The largest marine tankers, VLCC/ULCCs, are too large to dock at most Gulf Coast ports or transit the Panama Canal.
Foreign-flagged tankers from a Canadian port would avoid U.S. Jones Act restrictions which require any vessel travelling between two U.S. ports to be owned and built in the U.S. and to be manned by an American crew. Jones Act restrictions can increase shipping costs from $2/bbl to as much as $6/bbl.
There is more than enough bitumen (see Alberta Crude Oil Reserves Largest On Earth on-line or elsewhere on this website) to support at least two east coast ports, to double the capacity of Irving's refinery, supply two refineries in Quebec, revitalize the Dartmouth NS refinery, and have more than enough feedstock left to support major petro-chemical industries in Montreal and Saint John, and perhaps even Sarnia with a new line from Montreal, when an Energy East Line 2 is built later.
On April 2, 2015 TransCanada announced cancellation of the marine terminal to export crude from Cacouna QC because it may endanger beluga whales in the Gulf of St. Lawrence —delaying the Energy East pipeline two years. That should improve chances that the pipeline will be extended to the Canso NS Superport.
However, pipeline companies have so far amply proven they can't get it right on either of Canada's East or West Coasts.
Mike Priaro, P.Eng.
Calgary, Alberta, CANADA
403-281-2156
Calgary, Alberta, CANADA
403-281-2156
Author Bio
Mike Priaro, B.Eng.Sc. (Chem. Eng.), U.W.O. '76, P.Eng., Lifetime Member Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta (APEGA), worked in facilities, production, operations and reservoir engineering, as engineering consultant, area superintendent, and engineering management in Alberta's oil patch for 25 years for companies such as Amoco and PetroCanada.”
He increased oil production from the historic Turner Valley oilfield and brought in under-balanced drilling and completion technology to drill out, complete, and test several of the highest producing gas wells ever on mainland Canada at Ladyfern. He co-authored ‘Advanced Fracturing Fluids Improve Well Economics’ in Schlumberger's Oilfield Review and developed the course material for the ‘Advanced Production Engineering’ course at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology.
Mike has presented his work to Canada’s House Committee on Natural Resources in Ottawa and had work published by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in the March and April, 2014 and February, 2015 editions of Inside Policy magazine, by U.S. energy industry websites such as RBN Energy, in the July 17, 2014 edition of the Oil and Gas Journal, in Petroleum Technology Quarterly, Q3 2014, and in several columns in the Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Montreal Gazette, Halifax Chronicle Herald, and others.
Mike has no formal connection to any oil company, environmental organization, think tank, labour organization, lobbying or special interest group, academia, or to provincial or federal politics.”
In 2015 Mike provided "A Preliminary Engineering, Economic, and Environmental Evaluation of ASRL's Partial Upgrading Process" to Alberta Sulphur Research Limited and presented it to 80 representatives of ASRL's member companies. ASRL partial upgrading subsequently obtained Alberta government funding and industry support. On Jan. 29, 2016, the Alberta Government made partial upgrading a priority based on its Royalty Review Panel’s recommendations. As of June, 2016 the ASRL partial upgrading flow test pilot was running at CANMET/NRCan’s research facility in Devon, AB.
In 2016 Mike was invited to be a Bowman Centre Volunteer Associate at the not-for-profit Bowman Centre for Sustainable Energy. Its goal is 'to catalyze big energy projects which drive Canada’s energy strategy and generate sustainable wealth and jobs'.
Mike’s work can be found on his LinkedIn pages:https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-priaro or Behance website:https://www.behance.net/Mike_Priaro
Mike is available for special projects and speaking engagements.