First major tar sands oil shipment arrives in Europe amid protests | Environment | The Guardian
►http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/06/first-tar-sands-oil-shipment-arrives-in-europe-amid-protests
A cargo believed to be Europe’s first major shipment of tar sands oil arrived in Spain this week, as European policymakers proposed scrapping the requirement that such oil be labeled as more polluting than other forms of crude.
570,000 barrels of Western Canada Select heavy blend crude, originally from Canada, arrived in Spain’s port of Bilbao in the middle of this week, said a spokesman for Repsol.
The shipment, which he said was a first for the Spanish oil and gas company, is part of a pilot project to test the capacity of its refineries to process the heavy grade crude.
“We’re trying to give a future for oil refining in Europe, where many refineries have been shutting down in recent years,” he said. “We share environmental concerns but we think the solution is in efficiency and technology.”
Producing oil from tar sands generates higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil. It has also been criticised for the amount of water needed to extract it.
In anticipation of the shipment, Spanish environmentalists held a protest at the port of Bilbao last week. Mariano González of Ecologists in Action said "this was a good occasion to raise awareness about what’s happening and express our disapproval.
The group is planning to continue its protests. “That was just our first action in coordinating a rejection of the entry of this type of oil into Europe,” he told the Guardian.
The fact that this week’s cargo is a test shipment, he said, gave a sense of urgency. “It’s likely that if the EU doesn’t do something, tar sands oil will start to arrive in massive quantities to Europe.”