Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
I believe the great lakes are generally closed to shipping for some portion of the winter every year? That makes it sort of tough to build a supply chain because you need a backup method as well, so then you have costs for both methods of egress.
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Also at the best of times it takes more than a week to go through the Seaway from the western parts of Lake Superior, with a pretty low max capacity limit for a Seawaymax tanker, you'd be facing storage issues at Thunder Bay really quick even with a very small pipeline because there just aren't enough ships to do that. Plus the more you try to sail, the longer the travel time (and concerns from both Canadian and American companies shipping other products as a result of the increased backlog).
Factor in that you're paying a lot in tolls to use the Seaway for a relatively small amount of oil, you'd be better off trying to get oil-by-rail to the East coast beyond the Seaway to a similar size tanker (less travel time, less tolls), much less a larger one.