New Brunswick-based Irving Oil says it wants Alberta crude – but the lack of a pipeline means they are having to go to extremes to get it..Instead of rail cars, the company has applied to the Canadian Transportation Agency for permission to use foreign oil tankers to transport Canadian crude from Burnaby to its refinery in St. John..CTV reports in a letter to the federal authority, Irving described what it calls a crisis in both the Canadian economy and energy industry.. “As a Canadian company who owns and operates Canada’s largest oil refinery, Irving oil should have access to Canadian crude oil from both offshore Newfoundland and Western Canada,” the letter states..“It is critical to our customers, to our business, and to energy security throughout Atlantic Canada that we are able to use foreign crude oil tankers.”.The company wants to load crude from a West Coast terminal in Burnaby onto a tanker that would go down the Western seaboard to the Panama Canal to the Atlantic, and then to Saint John for unloading and refining..Irving also wants to get oil from terminals on the U.S. Gulf Coast onto ships, to the Bay of Fundy, and from suppliers in Newfoundland and Labrador..It says there are no Canadian-owned tankers available..Ivring says in their letter that the COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis in the energy industry..It hopes to use the tanker plan for one year, starting this month.. Trudeau on WE scandal: Case closed .Environmentalists say the company may be moving too quickly during the pandemic..“We’re watching them closely to make sure that companies like Irving don’t take the opportunity to expedite and move forward with things they want to do without the level of environment oversight that they’d usually see,” Matt Abbott of Fundy Baykeeper, told CTV..Dave Naylor is the News Editor of the Western Standard.dnaylor@westewrnstandardonline.com.TWITTER: Twitter.com/nobby7694
