According to what a leading Asian energy consultant let slip at a recent conference to UBC’s Dr. Michael Byers, China doesn’t have the refining capacity to handle Alberta bitumen – therefore they would only buy Tar Sands crude transported by the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline at a steep discount. This consultant further implies Enbridge’s line is a ruse – an uneconomic straw man designed to put more pressure on the US State Department to approve the contentious Keystone XL line to the Gulf of Mexico, where the only significant bitumen refining capacity lies.

Read Dr. Byers’ article here (August 17, 2011).