Pacific Basin Heavy Oil Refining Capacity

The United States today is Canada’s largest customer for oil and refined oil products. However, this relationship may be strained due to physical, economic and political influences. Pipeline capacity is approaching its limits; Canadian oil is selling at substantive discounts to world market prices; and U.S. demand for crude oil and finished products (such as gasoline), has begun to flatten significantly relative to historical rates. Lower demand, combined with increased shale oil production, means U.S. demand for Canadian oil is expected to continue to decline. Under these circumstances, gaining access to new markets such as those in the Asia-Pacific region is becoming more and more important for the Canadian economy. However, expanding pipeline capacity to the Pacific via the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline and the planned Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is only feasible when there is sufficient demand and processing capacity to support Canadian crude blends. Canadian heavy oil requires more refining and produces less valuable end products than other lighter and sweeter blends. Canadian producers must compete with lighter, sweeter oils from the Middle East, and elsewhere, for a place in the Pacific Basin refineries built to handle heavy crude blends. Canadian oil sands producers are currently expanding production capacity. Once complete, the Northern Gateway pipeline and the Trans Mountain expansion are expected to deliver an additional 500,000 to 1.1 million barrels a day to tankers on the Pacific coast. Through this survey of the capacity of Pacific Basin refineries, including existing and proposed facilities, we have concluded that there is sufficient technical capacity in the Pacific Basin to refine the additional Canadian volume; however, there may be some modifications required to certain refineries to allow them to process Western Canadian crude. Any additional capacity for Canadian oil would require refinery modifications or additional refineries, both of which are not expected, given the volume of lighter and more valuable crude from the Middle East finding its way to Pacific Basin markets. Consequently, any new refinery capacity is not likely to be dedicated to Canadian crude shipments. This places increasing importance on the need to enter into long-term contracts to supply Pacific Basin refineries, backed up by evidence of adequate transportation capacity. Canadians will have to show first, and quickly, that we are committed to building pipelines that will bring sufficient volumes of oil to the Pacific coast necessary to give the refiners the certainty they need to invest in infrastructure for refining Canadian oil. Access to this crucial market will depend critically on the outcome of the pipeline approval process, and also the cost to ship from Canada. If Canada does not approve of the Pacific coast pipeline expansions, or takes too long in doing so, it could find its crude unable to effectively penetrate the world’s most promising oil export market

Vietnam in transition : education, culture and ethics : a reader and curriculum

Preface by Christoph StückelbergerThis book reflects on the process of constructing a curriculum for Vietnam studies designed for educators and researchers in the field of social studies. Based on a selection of scholarly works, proceeds of seminars and conferences on education inside and outside Vietnam, the English edition proposes an analysis on factors that affect the learning environment of Vietnam as a young nation in the context of globalisation. The texts presented cover a large spectrum of subjects, starting with the changes in the educational and cultural background of Cochinchina under the French colonial period, visiting the role of higher education in an economy in transition, including the major literary trends in the pre-1975 Southern Vietnam modernisation process, among others. Transcripts of seminars and conferences reflect participants’ visions on the future of Vietnamese education, with the editor’s comments as takeaways at the end of each section

Monitoring, modelling and managing urban growth in Alexandria, Egypt using remote sensing and GIS

Alexandria is the second largest urban governorate in Egypt and has seen significant urban growth in its modern and contemporary history. This study investigates the urban growth phenomenon in Alexandria, Egypt using the integration of remote sensing and GIS. The study has revealed some significant findings that can help in understanding the current and future trends of urban growth in Alexandria. For demographic analysis, growth rates dropped off between 1976 and 1996. In the same manner, Alexandria's population decreased from 6.33% of total country in 1976 to 5.6% in 1996. Family size and crowding rates are declining as well. Moreover, the role of internal migration has changed and the city sends out more population than it receives. In addition, there is a clear decline in population density in the city's core, while city fringes have witnessed increases in their density. For physical expansion, Alexandria experienced a long history of deterioration from the end of the Roman era until the French expedition's departure in the beginning of the 19`" century. Alexandria began to revive again from the first half of the 19`n century during Mohamed Ali era up to date. The city expanded in all available directions. Therefore, the side effects of urban growth commenced to develop in some parts such as informal housing on the cultivated land in the east and southeast of the city. The urban physical expansion and change were detected using Landsat satellite images. The satellite images of years 1984 and 1993 were first georeferenced, achieving a very small RMSE that provided high accuracy data for satellite image analysis. Then, the images were classified using a tailored classification scheme with accuracy of 93.82% and 95.27% for 1984 and 1993 images respectively. This high accuracy enabled detecting land use/cover changes with high confidence using a postclassification comparison method. One of the most important findings here is the loss of cultivated land in favour of urban expansion. If the current loss rates continued, 75% of green lands would be lost by year 2191. These hazardous rates call for an urban growth management policy that can preserve such valuable resources to achieve sustainable urban development. The starting point of any management programme will be based on the modelling of the future growth. Modelling techniques can help in defining the scenarios of urban growth. In this study, the SLEUTH urban growth model was applied to predict future urban expansion in Alexandria until the year 2055. The application of this model in Alexandria of Egypt with its different environmental characteristics is the first application outside USA and Europe. The results revealed that future urban growth would continue in the edges of the current urban extent, which means the cultivated lands in the east and the southeast of the city will continue to lose more day by day from their area. To deal with this crisis, there is a serious need for a comprehensive urban growth management programme that based on the best practices in similar situations. Good urban governance, public participation, using GIS and remote sensing, and decentralisation (among others) are found to be the most important principles for such programme.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceEgyptian Government, Ministry of Higher EducationGBUnited Kingdo