TPT September 2013

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Global Marketplace
September 2013 99
processing heavy bitumen piped from the oil sands of Alberta
to a Detroit refinery.
In late spring, an electrical power plant owned by Canada’s
Nova Scotia Power began burning the high-carbon, high-
sulphur waste product (“petcoke,” in oil industry parlance).
A spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Power confirmed to Mr
Austen that the company had “bought fuel from that location.”
Citing “competitive reasons,” she declined to offer specifics.
(“Canadian Utility Finds a Use for Detroit’s Pile of Oil Sands
Byproduct,” 6 June)
According to the Times the final destination of the petcoke
had been something of a mystery. A particularly high emitter
of greenhouse gases, it is used mainly as inexpensive fuel
in countries like China, India and Mexico with relatively
lenient emissions controls. He wrote, “Environmentalists
were concerned not only about the impact of the growing
pile in Detroit but also about where the material would be
burned.”
Writing from Ottawa, the Canadian capital, Mr Austen said
that observers on both sides of the river had noted regular
visits to the coke pile by two self-unloading, oceangoing bulk
carriers owned by Canada Steamship Lines, of Montreal.
Websites that track ship movements indicated that one ship,
the Atlantic Huron, made several trips this year from Detroit
to a coal terminal in Sydney, Nova Scotia. According to
regulatory documents, that terminal services two Nova Scotia
Power plants that burn petroleum coke.
Mr Austen reported that a power station at Point Aconi in Nova
Scotia that uses petcoke has an unusual burning system that
minimises some forms of pollution from high-sulphur fuels.
Documents suggested that it is Nova Scotia Power’s heaviest
user of petroleum coke.
“The Point Aconi plant, which opened in 1994, was initially
promoted as a way to keep a local coal mine open,” Mr
Austen wrote. “But the mine closed anyway and the power
station now relies entirely on imported fuel.”
› The problem of the oil sands byproduct being stored in
open air near the river bank remained unresolved on
24 June, when the TV news programmme “Michigan Live”
covered protest marches through Southwest Detroit and in
Windsor, as local residents and politicians called again for
action.
According to the Times (6 June), “Despite the regular visits
to Detroit by ships to take away the petcoke, the oil sands
bitumen refinery there is producing the material at a rate
which means the waterfront pile continues to grow.”
At this writing, the Obama administration is still mulling
whether to approve or reject the highly controversial Keystone
XL pipeline.
If the project does get the green light, it would send more
oil sands bitumen from Canada to refineries in the US and
increase the amount of American petroleum coke accordingly.
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Ausgabe September 2013.indd 1 18.06.2013 08:31:36