The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, Sept. 22, edition that the National Energy Board says oil-by-rail shipments are
set to climb tenfold within 25
years if no new major pipelines
are built.
The Globe's Kelly Cryderman writes that the NEB says the country's
oil production as a whole is
set to grow to 6.1 million barrels
a day by 2040, from current production levels
of about 3.8 million barrels a
day.
However, at least 1.2 million barrels
of that daily 2040 production
will need to travel by rail -- more
than 10 times what was transported
by rail each day in the
first three months of this year,
according to the NEB's "constrained-case"
model.
From the expansion of Kinder
Morgan's Trans Mountain
pipeline to Enbridge's Northern Gateway project,
both the work of the NEB
and Canadian pipeline building
have increasingly come under
scrutiny in recent years.
With the construction of major
new pipeline projects in doubt,
the NEB says the
extra costs associated with rail
transport will, in turn, dampen
investment in the oil and gas
sector.
"Rail is more costly. And so
from a producer perspective, the
netbacks are lower," says NEB economist Shelley
Milutinovic.
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