[CarlV]

Today's WaPo:

You might expect the biggest lease owner in Canada's oil sands, or tar sands, to be one of the international oil giants, like Exxon Mobil or Royal Dutch Shell. But that isn't the case. The biggest lease holder in the northern Alberta oil sands is a subsidiary of Koch Industries, the privately-owned cornerstone of the fortune of conservative Koch brothers Charles and David.

The Koch Industries subsidiary holds leases on 1.1 million acres -- an area nearly the size of Delaware -- in the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada, according to an activist group that studied Alberta provincial records. The Post confirmed the group’s findings with Alberta Energy, the provincial government’s ministry of energy. Separately, industry sources familiar with oil sands leases said Koch’s lease holdings could be closer to two million acres.The company with the next biggest collection of oil sands leases is Conoco Phillips.

What is Koch Industries doing there? The company wouldn't comment on its holdings or strategy, but it appears to be a long-term investment that could produce tens of thousands of barrels of the region's thick brand of crude oil in the next three years and perhaps hundreds of thousands of barrels a few years after that.
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More, though older, fun:

Let’s step back and review what the refineries actually do. The diluted tar sands bitumen (or “DilBit”) that would flow through Keystone XL is an ultra-acidic, highly viscous mess, that doesn’t at all resemble the refined petroleum products like diesel or gasoline or even jet fuel that are sold on the commercial markets. DilBit is, in the words of Keith Schneider, ”thick as peanut butter and more acidic, highly corrosive, and abrasive” than typical crude.
This tar sands DilBit needs to be refined before it can be sold. But only certain refineries are capable of handling the corrosive DilBit.

Refiners along the Texas Gulf Coast, where the Keystone XL pipeline would ultimately deliver tar sands DilBit from Canada, are eager to accomodate. The company that appears positioned to receive and refine more of TransCanada’s crude than anyone else is the Valero Energy Corporation (NYSE: VLO).

Valero "Dedicated" To Keystone XL - And Ready To Profit From It
Valero is the world’s largest independent refiner, with 15 refineries that have a collective capacity to process 2.9 million barrels per day. While their commitments to TransCanada are confidential, Valero is publicly “dedicated” to the Keystone XL project, and their 310,000 barrels per day Port Arthur, Texas refinery would receive the Alberta-born crude. Valero has invested heavily to upgrade the Port Arthur plant to handle “heavy” “sour” crude (a.k.a. tar sands DilBit) for the past few years, anticipating the pipeline’s completion.

The company has long hoped for a steady supply of Alberta’s tar sands crude, first signing on to Keystone in July of 2008. In 2010, when the Texas company was pouring money into California’s Prop 23 battle, spokesperson Bill Day urged that Alberta is “a tremendous potential supplier for us.”

While their involvement with Keystone XL has largely flown under the radar, Valero was exposed in the bombshell “Exporting Energy Security: Keystone XL Exposed” (PDF) report by Oil Change International in September. The report found that, despite constant claims by TransCanada and other Keystone supporters of increased “energy security,” much of the crude that flows through Keystone XL would be exported. Valero was held up as a prime example of how and why. From that report:
Valero, the top beneficiary of the Keystone XL pipeline, has recently explicitly detailed an export strategy to its investors. The nation’s top refiner has locked in at least 20 percent of the pipeline’s capacity, and, because its refinery in Port Arthur is within a Foreign Trade Zone, the company will accomplish its export strategy tax free.


Shell’s subsidiary Motiva and Total, both “shippers” with long-term contracts with TransCanada, also operate in this Foreign Trade Zone, meaning that they are exempt from customs duties on imports and exports, and also from state and local taxes.

In other words: they can sell the Keystone XL crude overseas without paying American taxes. Combine that with the fact that the Port Arthur plants are conditioned to take low-grade tar sands crude and refine it to diesel--which has much higher demand overseas-- and the incentive for Valero to export the Keystone XL crude is huge.
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Carl