Gas Price Update

[Blizzard]

An auto journo colleague posted himself filling a up a diesel Silverado, probably a press unit. Diesel was at 2.719, fill-up was around $240. Reason enough not to review trucks these days!

I saw that on FB, I follow him! Big difference from the 500e he got recently I'm sure 

[Seafoam]

Up again $1.82.9 in Halifax.

[Blueprint]

An auto journo colleague posted himself filling a up a diesel Silverado, probably a press unit. Diesel was at 2.719, fill-up was around $240. Reason enough not to review trucks these days!

I saw that on FB, I follow him! Big difference from the 500e he got recently I'm sure 

He actually leased the 500e, not a press car! Wondering what he did with his Bolt...

[dkazzed]

While we may not be affected in our vehicle by current gas prices, dairy and produce prices are up about 5-10%. Haven't noticed too much of an increase with meat yet. It's matter of time before general cost of non perishable food and goods goes up.

[Fobroader]

Its too bad that we live in a country without oil deposits and couldn't ever make our own gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel and such.....

[GreatBigAbyss]

Its too bad that we live in a country without oil deposits and couldn't ever make our own gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel and such.....

Not really the way that works, though, is it?  If the oil sands had been nationalized or provincialized, then that's very well what could have happened.  What did happen, though, is they were all privatized and bought up by American and Chinese companies.  Those companies that have invested so heavily have zero interest in selling fuel at a cheaper rate to Canadians, when they can get so much more money by selling on the international market at the current commodity pricing. 

I think what you're really complaining about is that the whole industry was privatized to begin with.  Look to Norway for another way of doing business...

[dkazzed]

Yep, there are zero incentives to private corporations to sell to Canadians at a discounted rate.

Even if it were still crown owned, I'd rather we make as much money as possible.

Just buy shares in oil companies.

[Firm]

Its too bad that we live in a country without oil deposits and couldn't ever make our own gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel and such.....

Not really the way that works, though, is it?  If the oil sands had been nationalized or provincialized, then that's very well what could have happened.  What did happen, though, is they were all privatized and bought up by American and Chinese companies.  Those companies that have invested so heavily have zero interest in selling fuel at a cheaper rate to Canadians, when they can get so much more money by selling on the international market at the current commodity pricing. 

I think what you're really complaining about is that the whole industry was privatized to begin with.  Look to Norway for another way of doing business...

This. Combined with the fact that Canada has extremely limited refining capabilities because refineries were (are?) bad and don't belong in our backyard.....So now we're dependent on other countries, who did build refining capabilities - with far less regard for environmental impacts than Canada would/could have, to supply.

Short-sighted virtue signaling policies have real long-term impacts....never saw that coming.

[RRocket]

Short-sighted virtue signaling policies have real long-term impacts....never saw that coming.

I know the virtual signal/woke angle is a popular one. But it all falls apart when you consider the PCs were in power for a decade before the "woke Liberals". And they did nothing. And they had a majority so they could have almost literally done anything they wanted in this regard. But instead, zero.

So for your argument to hold any water, that would have to mean the PCs were also too woke to do anything with a majority.

[blur911]

Short-sighted virtue signaling policies have real long-term impacts....never saw that coming.

I know the virtual signal/woke angle is a popular one. But it all falls apart when you consider the PCs were in power for a decade before the "woke Liberals". And they did nothing. And they had a majority so they could have almost literally done anything they wanted in this regard. But instead, zero.

So for your argument to hold any water, that would have to mean the PCs were also too woke to do anything with a majority.

Mulroney sold PetroCanada, it's now Suncor.   IIRC PetroCanada shut down 3 refineries in the '90s

[Firm]

Yeah, I wasn't attempting to call out any one particular government, PCs are almost a guilty on this as the Libs. Nobody would invest in building capacity, Crown or Private, because it was viewed as such a negative thing by the general public, media, etc. We have 3+ decades of governments who missed the opportunity to identify this as something important to the country's long-term stability, and the benefits to the environment of 'doing it right' vs passing the puck to some underdeveloped country to do it.

[Johnnymac]

The problem with our oil is that a lot of it is a different grade than what most of our refineries can use.  To build a new refinery nowadays is a billion dollar investment.  Then you have all the pollution that is produced in refining the oil (no real idea how much it does indeed produce with modern refineries, could be a lot, could be not as much as we think).

The reality is our country is a resource based economy for the most part.  There is the issue with how environmental activists and policy makers have been working together to lower the amount of natural resources that our country is able to produce.  That's not even mentioning the issue with a lot of the resources that we make we don't always refine into a value added product and only get a portion of the revenue "pie" from the resource.

If our country wanted to move away from natural resources they should have done a lot more investing in other areas to keep our GDP on pace with other countries.

[Tortoise]

If the private sector has no interest in building a refinery, should the government fork out the billions? If so, who would run it?

I am curious if the cost of the refinery issue is the driving issue. Canada contributes over 25 billion every year to the oil and gas sector, what's an extra billion for a refinery?

Granted there's the environmentalist resistance, but Alberta is a big place, surely they could have made it work.

[Johnnymac]

If the private sector has no interest in building a refinery, should the government fork out the billions? If so, who would run it?

I am curious if the cost of the refinery issue is the driving issue. Canada contributes over 25 billion every year to the oil and gas sector, what's an extra billion for a refinery?

Granted there's the environmentalist resistance, but Alberta is a big place, surely they could have made it work.

I would not get government at any level to fund building a refinery.  In my experience Governments only go with the lowest quote when doing anything and that's why everything they touch crumbles.

I think the question is why hasn't any of those big private companies invested a billion into a new refinery is a good one.  If I was to make a guess on why, I'd look back about a decade or so ago when here in little old NB a private Canadian owned company oil and gas company was looking at building a second refinery.  They got pretty far down the road with it also, with permits and plans all being approved.

What killed it was a couple of things.  One is that everyone at the time was stating how the world was going to be moving to EV's and the demand for traditional fuel would only be going down.  The second was the price of oil and the possibility of a pipeline coming east.  The cost of oil dropped and the pipeline got cancelled. 

While it would cost a billion dollars to build a modern refinery in Canada, it might be less in other countries and there could be lower costs associated with running a refinery in another country (cheaper labor, etc). 

I think Government is in a tough spot on how to firstly get more of our natural resources refined within our borders while at the same time not increasing the cost to Canadian consumers.