As our province rolls into a new physical, if not fiscal year, a few nagging problems remain out there that need to be addressed not only by provincial administrators but with their partners across the country and internationally.
When it comes to the oil industry, the global village moniker certainly applies.
We find it a bit discouraging to constantly read about how all the players are working so hard to get land-locked oil to refineries and markets. The problem for us is that when the experts refer to this land-locked oil, they are inevitably referring to Alberta's bitumen based heavy oil, not Saskatchewan's light, sweet Bakken crude.
All the attention is being paid to getting this bitumen into the pipelines, rail cars, refineries and ships.
This attention is understandable since the Alberta oil sands companies are the big dogs when it comes to Canadian crude.
But we, too need to send hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil off to market on a regular basis, and unless there is a fresh perspective blossoming in the pipeline industry that we don't know about, it seems as if Saskatchewan is being left with existing infrastructure to carry whatever it can by whatever means possible while the major carriers focus their attention on Bakken crude from North Dakota and Alberta's big bitumen.
So far, Saskatchewan's producers have been taking big financial hits in order to get our crude to where it needs to go, and on an ever increasing scale, it appears as if rail is becoming the new normal. But after the Lac Magentic disaster, there are serious questions surrounding this mode of transportation and moving crude by rail does impact southeast Saskatchewan emphatically, much more so than moving it through the existing pipeline webs.
Canada's rail companies are waking to the fact they need to improve their risk assessment and management plans if they are going to continue to transport crude oil, whether it is heavy, light sweet or sour. There are safety and environmental requirements that need to be addressed.
This can be done. After all, there are thousands of trucks and trains carrying gasoline, which is highly flammable, on our roads and rails every day along with propane and natural gas. Electricity is carried and used responsibly with minimum exposure to harm every second of every day.
These things can be done due to strong policies, regulations and protocols.
Those same stringent regulations now need to be applied to rail conveyance systems when it comes to oil, so we can be comfortable in the knowledge that the best is being applied, not an "it'll do" attitude.
The new regulations, when they come about, still won't address the price discrepancies that exist for land locked oil shipments, but they will ease the mind a bit if we know that the best protocol available is being used to move it to market.
The pipeline industry is already under strict regulatory controls, and their methods of monitoring are getting better and better and therefore safer and safer with new technology and knowledge garnered every day.
We should expect the same from the rail companies if they are going to be serious conveyors of our valuable commodity.
