Guest wrote:
If the border is crossed, then the Jones Act is out the window. But I'm not sure how comfortable Americans and Canadians would be watching foreign-crewed flag of convenience vessels do shuttles all season long between Superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Montreal or St. John.
Unfortunately, I don't think most people understand the implications of this, much less care.
Before any tankers would start moving crude through the Lakes, I suspect that there will be sufficient lawsuits and Congressional regulations to make sure that only American and Canadian vessels would be used. You are not talking international waters here, but domestic waters, so the regulations can be written as strictly as the US and Canada desire. I could easily see a requirement for triple-hull vessels to minimize to the greatest degree possible any kind of spill.
What would some of the implications be of foreign-flagged vessels carrying oil through the Great Lakes? Is this something that on a practical level is likely to happen?
Guest wrote:
If the border is crossed, then the Jones Act is out the window. But I'm not sure how comfortable Americans and Canadians would be watching foreign-crewed flag of convenience vessels do shuttles all season long between Superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Montreal or St. John.
Unfortunately, I don't think most people understand the implications of this, much less care.
Wouldn't surprise me with politics and business that without passage of the Keystone Pipeline that some of this crude ends up in Thunder Bay and transshipped east by Canadian and flag of convenience vessels. I know this is a simple solution without
substantiation but I feel business will trump politics.
This May 2014 report from the Congressional Research Service talks about the topic in general, although the Great Lakes are just mentioned in passing. On the American side, it seems that the Jones Act really influences the economics. The report mentions (on page 9) crude going from Texas to Canada via foreign tanker at $2 per barrel for transportation, while crude from Texas to the East Coast in Jones Act-compliant vessels is $5 to $6 per barrel.
If the border is crossed, then the Jones Act is out the window. But I'm not sure how comfortable Americans and Canadians would be watching foreign-crewed flag of convenience vessels do shuttles all season long between Superior, Wisconsin and Sarnia, Montreal or St. John.
Given the arguments over the Keystone Pipeline and the increasing production of oil from North Dakota, along with questions regarding the safest way to ship the Bakken crude to refineries, I wonder if we might see crude oil shipments being made on the lakes from Canada and Minnesota. Double-hulled tankers might be viewed as considerably safer than railway shipments and avoid the environmental issues of Keystone.
Guest wrote:The United States is #8 in world-wide iron ore production. The US has 27 billion tons of iron reserves within 110 billion tons of iron ore.
There is a lot of iron ore moving from Mexico to China. The Mexican cartels have their hands in that. An executive from the Arcelor-Mittal facility in Lazaro Cardenas was murdered there.
I was referring to the amount of resources left in our region. I seen past discussions on this site about how the iron ore ranges being depleted and now we are down to using muddy taconite instead of the traditional iron ore. China, Sweden, and Australia seem to have high quality iron ore on the market cheaper than we do. What I wanted to know was do we still have the capability and enough resources to become the best steel makers again.
For an interesting view of China watch a series called Wild China. I watched it recently on Netflix and was surprised to see the wide array of cultures living in that country. It is amazing that a country can have some of the most modern cities in the world while at the same time there are regions that have populations existing in primitive conditions.
Jared The Chinese at this stage of the game do not have the resources that everybody thinks they do. You have heard of the vale chinamax vessels. To transport iron ore from Brazil. Iron ore also comes from Australia. They tried to buy into the oilsands didn't get far. Tried to buy a coal mine in BC again, Didn't get too far. If they have all what people think or what story has been spun. Rest assured North America has what they need. Soon We will be feeding them
After 150 years of ore and mineral trade, is there still a decent amount of resources left in the region? Anything compared to the Chinese or Australian resources?