The old DOT-111 rail cars carry about 700 barrels of oil but because of safety concerns they are being phased out for newer, safer DOT-117 oil rail cars which can carry about 675 barrels of oil. We will use 700 barrels as a round number to form a basis of comparison: 1 rail car tanker = 3.25 truck tankers = 700 barrels = 111,000 liters = 29,500 US gallons = 117,500 US quarts As you can see below there are…
In a word, yes. While conventional oil production in Alberta has been at the same level for years, Alberta’s oil sands have hit yet another production record and the oil will move one way or another. As you can see in the chart below, Canada is out of pipeline capacity so that leaves, truck and rail. On October 18, 2018 the CEO of CP Rail said he expects to “match or exceed its record 2014 pace of 110,000 crude carloads…
Canada imports about 1 BILLION barrels of oil per year, nearly all into Quebec and Ontario in-spite of the fact that it exports 3.1 Billion barrels of oil per year. These are the specific numbers taken directly from the Canadian Federal Government from 2016: Canadian production: 3.9 MMb/d Imports: 0.9 MMb/d Exports: 3.1 MMb/d Below are some other statistics you might also find interesting: Canada Has the Third Largest Proven Reserves on the Globe: World proved reserves – 1,646 billion barrels…
Most Canadians think that they are getting their gasoline from Alberta and Texas, but that is just not the case. This 2016 graphic from Statistics Canada shows where Canada really gets its oil from:
Having worked at a few pipeline companies, I know they take safety and spills very seriously but we see pipeline bursts and their resulting spills with frequency in the news so the question lingers: Are pipelines safe? Let’s start by stating an obvious fact that no-one WANTS a pipeline or any other serious infrastructure (power lines, rail lines, highways…) in their back yard but without such infrastructure our modern world would grind to a halt. If we can agree on…