By Paul Morden, from www.theobserver.ca The Observer
An Alberta oil executive at this week’s bitumen conference made one of its strongest pitches for doing business in Sarnia-Lambton.
Ken James, CEO of Calgary-based Oak Point Energy Ltd., called the host of the two-day conference, Bitumen – Adding Value: Canada’s National Opportunity, “a community that welcomes industry.”
He was among Wednesday afternoon’s speakers at the final conference sessions that moved from the Guildwood Inn to the Oil Museum of Canada at Oil Springs.
James said it was an honour to speak at the birthplace of North America’s oil industry, and noted how the conference heard that Sarnia-Lambton would welcome a new oil refinery.
“How many places in North America are like that?”
The about 115 attendees at the two-day conference sponsored by the Canadian Academy of Engineering heard the case for refining and processing more of Alberta’s oilsands crude within Canada.
Organized by the Sarnia-Based Bowman Centre for Technology Commercialization, Alberta Innovates and the Sarnia-Lambton Economic Partnership, the conference called for that effort to begin with the building an oilsands bitumen upgrading plant in Sarnia-Lambton.
Conference organizers argue that processing more of Alberta’s oil in Canada would capture jobs and wealth created somewhere else when oil is exported and then processed into fuels and chemicals.
“We’re giving away value,” said Clem Bowman, founder of the Bowman Centre.
“We’ve been doing it for years. We’ve got to stop doing it.”
Conference chairperson Walter Petryschuk said he was struck by how much the conference presentations had in common.
“It means that in Canada there are many, many people who recognize that you can’t piddle away $125 billion a year, by the year 2025,” he said.
That’s an estimate of how much wealth could be created from refining and processing the oil expected to come out of the oilsands by then.
“And we are piddling it away,” Petryschuk said, “so we better find a better way.”
As the conference ended, Clem Bowman, founder of the Bowman Centre, said organizers would spend time finalize the wording of its communique.
One of its points is expected to be the argument that building a Sarnia-Lambton bitumen upgrading project should be a high priority project for Canada.
“We’re going to make it happen,” said Bowman, a former vice-president of research at Imperial Oil in Sarnia who went on to be one of the leaders of efforts to develop Alberta’s oilsands industry.
“We need a plan and path forward,” Bowmen said, adding he would take on the task of finding someone to lead the upgrader project.
“Until I find someone, I’m going to do it.”
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