Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada has petitioned the Conservative federal cabinet to overturn two controversial National Energy Board (NEB) decisions to allow exports of unprocessed bitumen to the United States.
"Canada's National Energy Board is sleep-walking through the re-drawing of the energy map of North America," CEP national president Dave Coles said. "These pipeline approvals undermine our energy security and make Canada's tar sands little more than a giant open pit to extract bitumen on behalf of American refineries.
"These pipelines put at risk Canadian upgrading in Alberta and refinery expansions in Ontario and Quebec. The NEB said it didn't care - we want to know if the government of Canada is also willing to turn its back on Canadian energy security and jobs."
At issue are two Enbridge Pipelines Ltd. pipeline projects:
- The Alberta Clipper may send up to 450,000 barrels per day of bitumen to the U.S. Midwest with future extensions reaching to the U.S. Gulf Coast, and the capacity of this pipeline can be doubled.
- The Southern Lights pipeline, described by some as a "bitumen export machine" brings "diluents" from the U.S. to Alberta to be mixed with bitumen so that it can be piped to U.S. refineries.
As the CEP submission to cabinet describes, the Enbridge pipeline projects together with the previously approved TransCanada Keystone pipeline are capable of tripling the export of unprocessed bitumen to the U.S., bringing totals to 1.5 million barrels per day. These export levels will inevitably cause the cancellation or postponement of Canadian upgrading projects that would otherwise be capable of handling the entire output from the tar sands through 2015.
The NEB rejected CEP proposals for expanding pipeline capacity to Eastern Canada, which now relies largely on offshore oil supplies.
"The NEB is obviously much more concerned with U.S. energy needs than it is those of Canadians, that is an outrageous betrayal of their mandate to uphold the Canadian public interest." Coles said.
CEP's petition to cabinet, as well as the previous petition to cabinet on the Keystone Pipeline, are posted online at www.cep.caThe Gazette (Montreal
