Israel and the Future of "Canada's" Tar Sands

Definitely the largest of all the SagD plants in operation within Alberta, this plant has now officially begun operations involving "Or Crude"-- a process developed and patented within 1948 conquered Palestine ["Israel"] to reduce energy costs in development of the large oil shale deposits within those borders. Israeli government subsidies were turned down for further exploration of this technology a few years
back, and instead Opti's parent company Ormat set up Opti to turn what was experimental production involving this procedure into commercial production of tar sands bitumen with only slight modifications.

The plan goes something simply like this: Steam out the bitumen which takes massive amounts of energy using a waste-burning procedure (Or Crude) that is dubbed "cogeneration" and produces over twice the greenhouse gasses as the equivalent level of production in a plant such as Suncor (already producing three times the GG emissions of "regular sweet crude") and mix that with natural gas.

This development "plan" involves using natural gas as well, but allows for the development to reduce both energy costs from outside the plant as well as financial costs once the Or Crude unit is in operation.

Only last October and November, the Deputy Premier of Alberta and Minister of International and Intergovernmental Relations, Ron Stevens, went (illegally) to the "Capital" of Israel, occupied Jerusalem, to promote further Israeli investments and operations in the tar sands of Alberta.

After the recent assault on Gaza, Israel will likely now take direct, illegal control of a major set of gas fields directly adjacent to the Gazan coastline, providing Israel with needed energy to undertake-- now that Opti has proved that their process can work commercially, and not only in a laboratory manner-- the same type of development of the oil shale deposits that cover some 15% of the land mass of what is commonly known as Israel. The gas fields are currently recognized as legal Palestinian territory.

Israel has already signed free trade agreements with Québec and Canada itself; The "Alberta advantage" is being promoted as the collaboration in both colonialism and massive climate change initiatives continues to advance and become more "efficient".
Nexen, Opti's partner in the Long Lake venture, is a member of the Canadian Boreal Initiative (CBI), a fake environmental organization that operates in "partnership" with various environmental groups that have extremely weak positions on conservation, tie themselves into "back room deals" with industry and also are directly partnered with corporations that are among the worst in environmental destruction, such as Suncor, Tembec and AlPac. Nexen's greenwashing efforts are needed as this plant (along with any such plants developed by their partner's parent company in Occupied Palestine) will be the worst emitter of Greenhouse Gasses.

The Canadian Boreal Initiative itself works with the funding of Ducks Unlimited and is not a legally standing NGO; their core funding comes through DU and originates with the Pew Charitable Trusts-- a massive foundation that is controlled by a majority of their board of directors who are either direct descendants of J Howard Pew or currently sit in control of the oil company, Sunoco. Sunoco has recently announced its plans to partner with Tar sands companies in the development of new
refineries and tar sands bitumen factories. The Pew Charitable Trusts also bankrolls some of the most hawkish, pro Israeli "think tanks" of major influence in the United States, such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute-- both major backers of Israel and the war on Iraq, as well as advocates for a joint US-Israeli strike on Iran.

Thus is a part of Israel's role in the tar sands.
--M

Long Lake upgrader begins operation
edmontonjournal.com
January 23, 2009

The ore crude unit part of the whole upgrader as joint venture partners OPTI Canada and Nexen marked the grand opening of the Long Lake Project 45 km south of Fort McMurray, AB, on October 23, 2008. It is Canada's fourth major integrated oilsands project and the first to integrate in-situ bitmen recovery with gasification and onsite upgrading.

Oil has started flowing from the Long Lake upgrader, Alberta’s newest oilsands project, Calgary-based Nexen Inc. announced today.

"The production of first synthetic crude oil at Long Lake is a significant milestone and proves that the technology works," said Marvin Romanow, Nexen's president and CEO, in a news release.

The $6.1-billion Long Lake project 40 kilometres south of Fort McMurray uses vast amounts of steam to loosen deep deposits of underground bitumen.

Nexen said production is expected to ramp up over the next 12 to 18 months on the way to a target of 60,000 barrels per day of premium sweet crude. Synthetic gas from the upgrader is being used to generate steam, reducing the need to buy natural gas to power the process.

"I would like to thank the thousands of people - our employees, our partner OPTI Canada Inc., our contractors, suppliers and government agencies - that have all contributed to this remarkable achievement,” Romanow said. “This is a world-class facility that we expect will produce premium synthetic crude at a significant cost advantage for the next 40 years."

Executives with Nexen and Opti said at an official opening ceremony in October that they were slowing plans to begin a second phase of the project for a number of reasons, including the global credit crisis.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/edmonton/Long+Lake+upgrader+begins+o...