[dwharrison]

That primarily impacts Canadian heavy crude exports. The BP Whiting refinery was the primary consumer of Canadian crude.

Few other refineries (other than some on the Gulf coast) are configured to handle the product.

That's why Canadian crude prices are collapsing...and why the price of gasoline in the upper midwest is going up.

The only other option for Canadian crude to pipeline export to the Texas gulf coast. The problem is pipeline capacity (that's why some much Canadian oil goes out by train), but even more critically, the pipelines typically offload at the giant Cushing OK storage center...and Cushing is right at 100% storage capacity. (you can't just pump crude straight into a refinery...there a timing mis-match that has to be dealt with via storage).

The Canadians are about to really get squeezed.

[redthrowaway]

We're already getting squeezed. We officially entered into a recession a while back. Housing prices in Alberta have collapsed. Every other province is about to get squeezed as all the oil patch workers head home and look for jobs. Buying things online sucks, and travelling is a terrible idea. Budget's shot to hell in the middle of an election, which is good if it helps force Harper out.

[mistermann]

> Housing prices in Alberta have collapsed.

Sales have collapsed perhaps, but not prices. We shall see if $30 oil can take the wind out of Canadian real estate, I'll believe it when I see it, the confidence level of Canadians when it comes to housing is extremely high.

[redthrowaway]

You're right. Sales are down 30% in Calgary, but prices have only dropped 1.6%. [1] Still, that's compared to a 9% rise for the rest of Canada. [2] I'd still expect them to drop significantly more as laid-off oil workers burn through their savings and find themselves unable to pay their mortgage.

[1] http://www.creb.com/Seller_Resources/Housing_Statistics/ [2] http://public.tableau.com/shared/S48Y522MR?:display_count=no

[mistermann]

Actually, not going up 10% a year in Canada pretty much could be considered a collapse!

> I'd still expect them to drop significantly more as laid-off oil workers burn through their savings and find themselves unable to pay their mortgage.

One would think so, but real estate seems to be able to often defy both logic and mathematics.

[brock_r]

The Chicago gas prices jumped up 50 cents the day after this hit the news.