Fisher, with Augustus Energy Partners, wrote a guest editorial in The Gazette in late June, calling on Congress to repeal legislation that prohibits the U.S. government from using gasoline and other oil products refined from oil sands. The U.S. Air Force has also asked Congress to rescind the ban.
Fisher said he is against the congressional ban for many reasons, not least because it is nearly impossible to trace fuels back to their source when so many different crude oils are blended before being shipped to American refineries.
Regional oil producers may feel another effect of Canadian developments, he said, because there might be a lack of skilled workers, which could dampen oil exploration and development. It is also possible that Montana businesses will be able to cash in on helping build Canadian infrastructure.
All three refineries in the Billings area will have a finger in the oil-sands pie. Pat Kimmet, manager of the CHS refinery in Laurel, said 90 percent of the crude oil entering the Laurel refinery is already heavy crude, with high sulfur and asphalt content, from conventional wells.
Part of refinery's feedstock is "western Canadian select," or WCS, a blend of various crude oils including some processed from the oil sands of northern Alberta.
As the supply of oil from conventional fields declines, Kimmet said, western Canadian select "is really the future of our refinery here in Laurel." Oil derived from the sands, he said, "is a huge reserve."
In anticipation of handling heavier crude oil, the CHS refinery completed a $400 million upgrade this spring that will squeeze more gasoline and diesel out of each barrel of crude. CHS has its own crude pipeline from the Canadian border to its refinery in Laurel.
Kimmet said the supply of crude from Canada is particularly welcome nowadays, when people are "concerned about the stability of other oil-producing regions of the world."
"We are just very fortunate to have it available to us from a stable country, from a country that's friendly and close to us," he said.And even though the refinery is using heavier, dirtier feedstock, Kimmet said, upgrades over the years have cut down substantially on sulfur dioxide emissions from the plant. In the early 1990s, when emissions were at their highest levels, he said, the CHS refinery emitted about 9,000 tons of sulfur dioxide a year. That number is now down to 400 to 500 tons a year, he said.
"We've been very progressive in dealing with the environmental issues," Kimmet said. "We have the equipment in place to deal with this kind of crude."The ConocoPhillips refinery in Billings also plans upgrades that will make it possible to handle some Canadian crude. Charlie Rowton, a company spokesman in Houston, said construction of new crude and vacuum units, which has not begun, is scheduled for completion in 2011.
The new units will be used to perform the initial separation of the crude oil into various products, which would then be further refined in other units at the plant. When the new units are in place, the capacity of the Billings refinery will go from 58,000 barrels of oil a day to 70,000 barrels.
Rowton said it is difficult to say what impact oil-sands developments will have on the Montana economy.
He also states, "Having access to more secure Canadian crude oil and upgrading our U.S. refineries ... will help maintain the economic vitality of all our refineries, including the one at Billings."The ExxonMobil refinery in Billings was designed to handle heavy crude and has been processing oil from the oil-sands industry in Alberta for many years, according to spokeswoman Pam Malek.
Malek said ExxonMobil, which processes 55,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day at its Billings refinery, isn't planning upgrades related to the oil sands.
