Irving Oil has applied to use foreign oil tankers to ship Canadian Crude to a Saint John refinery. To date, rail cars have been used to transport oil from Western Canada and the US, but Irving’s proposed plan will involve using tankers to transport crude from west coast terminals, through to Panama Canal, and bringing it to an east coast terminal. Irving says it wants to increase the use of domestic oil at its refinery, but environmentalists are concerned that if approved, things may move too quickly, potentially leading to reduced environmental oversight. The Irving Oil application to move that oil to Saint John using marine tankers starts this month and ends in one year, in April of 2021.
