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Congress must lift ban on oil refined from Canadian oil sands
By BOB FISHER

Many Americans don’t realize it, but Canada is our No. 1 source of imported oil. If not for Canada’s oil reserves, which include the vast oil-sands formations in Alberta, our country would rely even more on the OPEC oil cartel and transfer more of our wealth to the Middle East and South America.

Canada is the only major oil-producing country, other than the United States, that allows Western companies to freely explore and develop its oil n and there’s plenty of it. The Alberta oil sands hold an estimated 174 billion barrels of crude oil, which is second in size only to Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves. And Canada has sizable quantities of conventional crude oil, which it makes available to the U.S. market. Of the U.S. refineries that rely on oil carried by pipeline from Alberta, several are in Montana.

While there’s no question Canada’s oil is critically important to U.S. economic security, supplying

21 percent of our imported oil, environmental groups are doing their best to halt the production and use of oil sands, arguing that it has doubled the carbon emissions of conventional crude oil and therefore could be a factor in climate change. Not coincidentally, the same criticism is being leveled against two other energy sources that are likely to play an important role in America’s energy future n Western oil shale and synthetic oil made from coal.

In fact, a provision of energy legislation that Congress passed last December forbids the U.S. government from using gasoline and other oil products refined from oil sands, oil shale and liquefied coal. Now the U.S. Air Force n which is concerned about our nation’s growing dependence on foreign oil sources, including some nations less than friendly towards the U.S., has asked Congress to rescind the ban so that U.S. refineries can continue to make jet fuel from Canadian oil sands.

Congress should move promptly to lift the ban, which serves no worthwhile purpose. Need Congress be reminded that oil imports from overseas are costing Americans more than $200 billion a year and are responsible for a large share of our nation’s trade deficit? Need it be said that we are exporting our wealth to a number of oil-producing countries that don’t always have our nation’s best interests in mind? Certainly it should be possible to come to grips with the carbon issue without sacrificing our energy security.

The Canadian government says that as a result of new techniques for mining oil sands, greenhouse emissions per barrel have fallen

32 percent since 1990, and emissions are likely to fall further. For their part, U.S. refiners have pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions, and technologies are being developed to capture and store carbon dioxide deep underground.

There is considerable economic impetus to resolve the carbon issue. Crude oil produced from oil sands comes to U.S. refineries by pipeline at a rate of about 1 million barrels a day. And the supply is projected to reach 3 million barrels a day by 2015. If the United States doesn’t make use of this energy resource, you can be sure that China will.

It would be folly to brush off the enormous amount of energy contained in oil sands, especially when we’ve barely scratched the surface of what is possible in developing technologies for carbon mitigation. If Americans are going to cede this much to environmental groups, they at least ought to do it knowing the price in energy security they will pay.

Bob Fisher is a petroleum geologist in Billings.
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