July 3, 2010 by admin.

The following graph shows sulphur-price trends over time.

People asked me a few times during the past few weeks about what is happening with the feared construction of the HAZCO sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping facility that HAZCO so eagerly and urgently wanted to build not quite two miles east of Bruderheim, at the junction of Highway 45 and RR 202.

Well, the NRCB hearing last year decided to give HAZCO the go-ahead on that; against the wishes of many opponents.

It seems that HAZCO’s sense of urgency that drove their application evaporated in consequence of the collapse of the sulphur-price-bubble that had emerged in 2007 and popped by the end of 2008.

For most of 2009 plant-gate sulphur prices were below $0.00/LT and even as as low as -$29.52/LT.  That means that sulphur sources would have paid as much as $28.52/LT to selected “purchasers” just to have excess sulphur taken off their hands.

In other words, for as long as sulphur requires a subsidy to be leaving plant gates, to which then still the cost of forming and shipping the sulphur to Vancouver must be added before it can be injected into the saturated world market, it is not likely that producers or HAZCO will make a profit on selling, forming and shipping of sulphur.

It seems that common sense in standard business practices applies.  For now the sulphur business that HAZCO wanted to engage in at a profit is a bust and will not generate the revenues required for the cost of constructing the HAZCO sulphur facility, aside from the cost of forming and shipping of sulphur.

However, I am not the expert.  Perhaps it is possible to obtain better information from HAZCO or from the Lamont county planners who are busy having the infra-structure built from our tax money with which they hope to attract industries that will pay back what they invest.

Mind you, losses are not a great concern for the county planners or for the NRCB.  Whatever losses they cause will be paid for by the taxpayers.  It’s a no-risk business for planners and for the NRCB, although the taxpayers will lose a great deal even if the HAZCO facility will not be built.

The whole deal is not worth it to me to spend more time on.  I am through worrying about bubbles, and it likely that another bubble will not pop up for quite some years.  The last bubble we had pop up in the same place, before this one, popped up about 40 years ago.  Perhaps it will now be another 40 years before the next one pops up and then bursts.

Posted in Taxes, Town of Bruderheim, Community & Industry, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »

February 4, 2009 by admin.

The transcript of a letter (appended) received from FOLC’s lawyer will correct false and misleading rumours that have been set into motion and are circulating.

The rumours motivated some individuals to distance themselves from FOLC and thereby to stop resisting the attempts to impose on the residents of Lamont County industrial processes that are potentially harmful in a variety of ways, in respect to health, lives, properties and our way of life, in addition to not yet identified increased tax burdens because of not yet specified necessary upgrades to the County’s infrastructure (e. g.: requirements for road construction, fire-fighting and emergency response capabilities).

The transcript of the letter:

ACKROYD, LLP
BARRISTERS & SOLICITORS

RICHARD C. SECORD, LLM
(780) 412-2717
rsecord(_at_)ackroydlaw.com
ASSISTANT: NICOLE MAH
(780) 423-8905 ext 243
nicolem(_at_)ackroydlaw.com

OUR FILE No. 136695/RCS

YOUR FILE No.

January 31, 2009

Members of the Friends of Lamont County

Dear Friends of Lamont County Members:

Re:    HAZCO ALBERTA SULPHUR TERMINALS LTD.
SULPHUR FORMING AND SHIPPING FACILITY APPLICATION NATURAL RESOURCES CONSERVATION BOARD (”NRCB”) HEARING APRIL 14, 2009

We have been retained by the Friends of Lamont County (”FOLC”) to represent it at the Natural Resources Conservation Board (”NRCB”) Hearing which will take place on April 14, 2009 in Fort Saskatchewan. An NRCB Pre-hearing Conference meeting was held in Lamont on January 27, 2009.

In paragraph 27 of the Pre-hearing Submission filed by the FOLC, it stated:

… in order to effectively participate in the hearing, they require expert advice and legal counsel. As they receive no financial benefit from the Project, they should not have to finance the cost of the experts and legal counsel.

We understand that you may have been contacted by various individuals suggesting that membership in the FOLC may result in liability for legal fees and expert costs in the event that all of those costs are not recovered through the NRCB’s Intervener Cost Claim Process.

We wanted to let you know that our retainer to act for FOLC is on the basis that our legal fees will be recovered through the NRCB Intervener Cost Claim Process. In the event that all of our legal fees are not recovered in that process, there will be no additional levy to any of the members of the FOLC.

- 2 -

The experts that are working for the FOLC have also been retained on the same basis. These experts will be filing reports which will assist the NRCB in determining whether the HAZCO project is in the public interest. In· the event that the FOLC experts do not receive full payment through the NRCB Intervener Cost Claim Process, there will be no additional levy to any of the members of the FOLC.

If you have any questions about the basis of our retainer, please do hesitate to contact the undersigned at 780-412-2717 or Kevin Schultz at 780-940-9832 or Denis Van Brabant at 780-818-2011.

Yours truly,

ACKROYDLLP

(Signed)

RICHARD C. SECORD RCS/nm

q:\secord\130009-149000\ 136\136695 folc\09-01-31.doc

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1500 FIRST EDMONTON PLACE, 10665 JASPER AVENUE, EDMONTON, ALBERTA T5J 3S9 TELEPHONE (780) 423-8905 FAX: (780) 423-8946

Posted in Community & Industry, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »

January 23, 2009 by admin.

Your attendance is needed!

This is for anyone who is concerned about the possible consequences and risks posed by the proposed sulphur-forming, -storage and -shipping facility intended to be built by Alberta Sulphur Terminals Ltd. (HAZCO) 2.2 km east from Bruderheim and NW from Lamont, at the junction of Highway 45 and Range Road 202.

The Natural Resources Conservation Board (NRCB) will be holding a pre-hearing conference regarding HAZCO’s application to construct and operate a sulphur-forming and -shipping facility.  A plan for a buffer storage pile that will be out in the open, exposed to the elements and is intended to contain up to 100,000 tonnes of formed sulphur prills is part of HAZCO’s proposal.

NRCB Pre-Hearing Conference

Date and Time:    January 27, 2009 at 10 a.m.
Location:            Lamont Hall / Recreation Centre
4848 - 49th Street, Lamont, Alberta

You do not need to make a presentation, but your presence at the pre-hearing conference will have an impact.  It will help even more if you forward this message to your friends and neighbours before the NRCB pre-hearing conference takes place.

Print this message and pass it on to those of your friends who don’t have e-mail or Internet access.

Information on the consequences of some sulphur fires and other sulphur-related incidents throughout the world and Alberta is accessible through the following links:

• http://folc.ca/sulphur_storage/fires.htm
• http://folc.ca/sulphur_storage/evacuations.htm
• http://lce.folc.ca/category/explosions-fires/

(Note: The websites indicated by the preceding links are not affiliated with The Friends of Lamont County (FOLC), but they do support the work done by FOLC.

Looking forward to seeing you at the NRCB pre-hearing conference,

Walter and Ruth Schneider

Posted in Explosions & Fires, Community & Industry, Pollution: Health Issues, Hazco, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

January 20, 2009 by admin.

edmontonjournal.com
January 20, 2009

By Dave Cooper

EDMONTON — The Energy Resources Conservation Board has approved Petro-Canada’s plans to build an oilsands upgrader in the Alberta Industrial Heartland near Fort Saskatchewan.

However, Petro-Canada has put off a decision on whether to proceed with the Fort Hills project, which includes a mine near Fort McMurray along with the upgrader….(Full Story)

Posted in Community & Industry, Sulphur Logistics | Print | No Comments »

October 2, 2008 by admin.

chicagotribune.com

EPA: BP violated Clean Air Act in Whiting

Associated Press
5:38 PM CDT, October 2, 2008

WHITING, Ind. - BP PLC violated the Clean Air Act by beginning to make modifications at its Indiana oil refinery along Lake Michigan to process Canadian crude before it received the proper permit, federal regulators said Thursday.

The allegation was included in an amended complaint by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The complaint alleges BP violated the law by making several unapproved changes in 2005 when it altered a unit at the refinery that converts heavy oils into lighter products such as gasoline.

The EPA said in November the modifications caused “significant increases” in sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, particulate matter and carbon monoxide emitted from the refinery….(Full Story)
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Comment by folc.ca : It is not clear at all what BP will do with the sulphur it will recover from the heavy crude it gets from Canada.  As of now the US does not permit storage of sulphur to block.

Posted in Pollution: Health Issues, Emission Incidents & Issues, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

October 19, 2007 by admin.

Canadian Occupational Health & Safety News
October 15, 2007

Alberta oil sands fire forces mass evacuation of facility

FORT MCMURRAY (Canadian OH&S News) — More than a thousand workers from an Alberta-based energy company were sent home following an early morning oil sands fire at a facility 25 kilometres north of Fort McMurray earlier this month.

The fire began in a drum of Suncor Energy Inc’s Millennium Coker Unit (a key processing unit in an oil sands upgrader) at around 6 am on October 2, states a press release issued by the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB). It took approximately 45 minutes to extinguish the fire, adds Josh Stewart, spokesman for Alberta Environment…. (Full Story)

[Update by folc.ca - 2007 11 08: The link no longer functions. Moreover, the website of OHSCanada contains not a single reference to Suncor, a fire at Suncor or any evacuations there that can be accessed through either an Internet search or through OHS’ search facility at their website. That is outright Orwellian editing of recorded history.

Fortunately, the full article from which the quoted paragraphs were excerpted is still available on the Internet at a few other websites that, unlike the OHS article, are fully archived at the Internet Archive.

Unlike the recorded history of the society that George Orwell wrote about in “1984“, any incident thought worth recording by anyone is impossible to erase now, for as long as total control and censorship of the Internet is not handed over to our governments.]

Stories and comments on Suncor coker fire

Comment by folc.ca: Why should anyone in Lamont County care about the Suncor fire?

The Suncor site is 25 km away from Fort McMurray. The Oct. 2 Suncor fire caused the evacuation of more than a thousand workers. How many thousands of people would have had to be evacuated if the fire would not have been 25 km but only two 2 km away from Fort McMurray, the distance between Bruderheim and the proposed HAZCO waste-sulphur storage and handling site?

The evacuation zone identified in the emergency response measures proposed by HAZCO includes neither Bruderheim nor Lamont. Its boundaries extend no farther than 1.5 km away from the proposed HAZCO site.

HAZCO insists that explosions and fires involving sulphur fires and the release of massive volumes of sulphur dioxide produced by such fires are not a threat to the residents of Lamont County. However, as the record of such incidents at http://folc.ca shows, and as is also shown in the category Explosions and Fires at this blog, sulphur fires and even sulphur-storage, -forming and -handling fires happen, happen frequently and happen even in Alberta. Such fires caused evacuations, and at times loss of health and of lives for miles around.

HAZCOS’ proposed sulphur-forming and -shipping facility must not be permitted to be constructed in a location close to areas with high population density. That still leaves the question as to whether the risk of having such a facility is tolerable even in areas with low population density.

Is the acceptance of risk to health and lives a calculated one and a matter of degree? If so, then how many lives constitute too many lives?

The location of Shell’s Shantz sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping facility was picked because it is more than 40km away from the Natural Gas processing and desulphurization facility at Caroline, so as to remove the risk to Caroline residents that sulphur-storage, -forming and -shipping poses.

If a 40km distance between a sulphur facility and the residents of nearby communities was deemed safe then, how come that HAZCO now insists on lowering that standard to a small fraction (2km) of what it was when a permit was granted for the construction of Shell’s Shantz facility?

In case you wonder about whose sulphur will be handled by HAZCO, the majority, if not all, of that sulphur is being, and will be, produced and owned by Shell.

Posted in Explosions & Fires, Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, Hazco, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Dioxide | Print | No Comments »

October 10, 2007 by admin.

BiopactU.S. DOE to invest $197 million in three large carbon sequestration projects

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announces that it has awarded the first three large-scale carbon sequestration projects in the United States and the largest single set in the world to date. The three projects - Plains Carbon Dioxide Reduction Partnership; Southeast Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnership; and Southwest Regional Partnership for Carbon Sequestration - will conduct large volume tests for the storage of one million or more tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep saline reservoirs….(Full Story)

One of those carbon (and hydrogen-sulphide) sequestration projects involves the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  Specifically in relation to Alberta,

A second test will be conducted in northwestern Alberta, Canada, and will demonstrate the co-sequestration of CO2 and hydrogen sulfide from a large gas-processing plant into a deep saline formation. This will provide data about how hydrogen sulfide affects the sequestration process. The Plains partnership includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin, along with the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba….(Full Story)

Given that the plant-gate price per long ton of waste sulphur in Alberta saw a steady decline from a high of $56.24 in May 2003 down to $0.00 in July 2007, it is very curious that HAZCO intends to establish a sulphur-forming and -processing facility to the east of Bruderheim, especially given the fact of HAZCO’s statements to the extent that one of the previously faltered proposals for such a facility in Thorhild County was allegedly canned by HAZCO because at that time there was a similar slump in waste-sulphur prices.

Due to the low prices for Alberta waste-sulphur that will now most likely prevail for many years to come, it would appear that HAZCO’s proposal for sulphur forming and processing in Lamont County is now even less likely to ever be economical in relation to the Canadian economy than it was when the Thorhild proposal got scrapped.

However, sulphur-processors, -shippers and -handlers still get paid as long as they manage to  inject sulphur into the glutted word market, regardless of  what the world market price for sulphur happens to be, as long as  Canada wants to get rid of its waste-sulphur, and as long as the taxpayers and end-consumers of oil and gas are willing to pay the price.

It appears that the only viable process for HAZCO (but of course only through subsidization by end consumers of oil-refinery products) is the long-term storing of waste-sulphur in Lamont County.  HAZCO vehemently insists it has no interest in pursuing that option.

See also Sulphur glut poses storage nightmare.

Posted in World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

September 21, 2007 by admin.

StockInterview, Inc.

Rusty Oil & Gas Pipelines Could Drive Molybdenum Price Higher, Part One

As long as air conditioners keep us cool in the summer and central heating warms us in the winter, all is well in the world. In order to keep this gas and electricity continuously flowing into our homes, molybdenum has emerged as an essential metal to help preserve challenging energy transportation network. The anti-corrosive qualities found in molybdenum could also help prevent the collapse of the U.S. energy infrastructure….

In the absence of water, hydrogen sulphide is non-corrosive to pipelines. However, increased moisture in pipelines is problematic, because it activates the corrosive capabilities of hydrogen sulphide. A combination of tensile stress, susceptibility of low-alloy steels and chemical corrosion will lead to sulfide stress cracking. Hydrogen ions weaken the steel. Over time, pressure causes the embrittled steel in the pipeline to rupture.

Similar problems have emerged in the natural gas sector. As deeper wells are drilled in hot, high-pressure gas deposits, the probability of hydrogen sulphide in gas can increase. An entire industry has sprung up around decontaminating sour gas. U.S. sulfur production from gas processing plants accounts for about 15 percent of the total U.S. production of sulfur…. (Full Story)

Posted in Sulphur Logistics, Hydrogen-Sulphide | Print | No Comments »

September 10, 2007 by admin.

Gulf Daily News

MANAMA [Bahrain]: A senior Bapco official [acting chief executive Abdulkarim Al Sayed] has praised the firm’s staff for their teamwork on efforts in the firm’s Low Sulphur Fuel Oil (LSFO) activities….

The visit coincided with attainment of the peak activities of maintenance work, 2HDU revamp and tie-ins for the Refinery Gas Desulphurisation Project….(Full Story)
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Note by folc.ca: Bahrain presently does not permit storing of sulphur in blocks. That means that the waste-sulphur produced at the Babco refinery at Manama must be sold into the glutted world market.

Posted in World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Ultra-Low-Sulphur Diesel, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »

September 10, 2007 by admin.

Detroit Free Press

Marathon would spend $2 million to install stations

Marathon Petroleum Co. expects to spend $2 million to install air quality monitoring stations that would warn residents near its southwest Detroit refinery of environmental problems.

The monitors are part of Marathon’s three-year, $1-billion plan to increase refinery production in Detroit by 15%….

“We’re spending more than $300 million for pollution controls at the Detroit refinery,” said James Wilkins, manager of the Refining Environmental & Safety division.

The Marathon expansion holds the promise of 800 construction jobs starting early next year through 2010. The project also could help stabilize fuel prices for Michigan motorists by adding about 630,000 gallons of gas a day to the market.

Marathon’s plan for growth calls for the use of so-called heavy crude oil that comes from Canada’s tar sands, primarily in northern Alberta. Unlike the light-sweet crude from Saudi Arabia and other places, heavy crude has a higher sulfur content [emphasis by folc.ca] and is more difficult to process cleanly…. (Full Story)
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Note by folc.ca: The U.S. presently does not permit storing of sulphur in blocks. That means that the waste-sulphur produced at Marathon’s Michigan refinery will most likely result in reduced U.S. import volumes of Canadian waste-sulphur. Not only that, but some of the waste-sulphur produced by Marathon will result in competition for sales of Canadian waste-sulphur in a glutted world market.

Posted in Community & Industry, Emission Incidents & Issues, World Sulphur Glut, Sulphur Logistics, Sulphur-Related Construction Costs | Print | No Comments »