Fast Facts

  • Kitimat Clean Ltd. proposes to build a green state-of-the-art heavy oil refinery near Kitimat, BC at a cost of $22 billion. It will be one of the ten largest refineries in the world and will be the lowest cost producer of any refinery on the Pacific or Indian Oceans.
  • The refinery will process 400,000 barrels per day of pure bitumen from Alberta’s oil sands into gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel, primarily for export.
  • To protect the land environment, only solid bitumen will be shipped to the refinery by train.  The bitumen will be melted out of the train cars at the refinery.
  • A natural gas pipeline will be built and operated by a third party to bring gas from northeastern BC to the refinery.
  • Unlike oil and diluted bitumen, refined fuels all float and evaporate if ever spilled at sea.  One VLCC sized tanker will carry the gasoline, diesel and jet fuel down the Douglas Channel to Asia every four days.
  • There is a very high public benefit to BC and Canada with the development of 2,500 permanent jobs at the refinery, another 2,500 permanent jobs in nearby petro-chemical businesses, and thousands of new indirect permanent jobs. One billion dollars of new tax revenues will be generated annually for government.
  • At a capital cost of $5 billion the refinery will use new Canadian technology to cut greenhouse gases by two-thirds compared to all other heavy oil refineries in the world. As a result the total CO2 emitted per barrel at the Alberta oil sands and at the Kitimat refinery will be less than the CO2 emitted by the conventional oil industries in Iraq and Nigeria.  The refinery saving in CO2 emissions will be equivalent to taking six million continuously running cars off the road.
  • Kitimat Clean Ltd. has a good business case.  The projected Return on Investment is 9%.
  • The Canadian government is being asked to provide a $10 billion guarantee to refinery lenders. This is in line with Federal practice on major projects, such as the $6.6 billion guarantee provided to Newfoundland in 2012 which covered 100% of the costs for a Maritime’s power project.
  • An environmental project description was submitted to the BC and Canadian governments on March 31, 2016.  It has been posted to this website.  Further environmental analysis and permitting will take two years.
  • Over the same two years the detailed engineering design will be completed, contracts will be signed with all stakeholders, and required funding will be raised.  Construction will then take 5 more years and employ 6,000 workers.