In the backdrop of the Russian hydrocarbon sanctions, the European Union is capitulating to Canada in trade negotiations over the use of high greenhouse gas intensity tar sands crude.
The EU will drop its attempt to keep Alberta tar sands crude out, and Europe is getting its very first tanker shipment of tar sands heavy sour crude apparently this month.
The number of EU refineries that can take heavy crude is limited, so the market for heavy crude isn't strong in the EU, which previously received limited shipments of heavy crude from Venezuela and Mexico. That could change if EU refineries install more sulfur recovery, coking and vacuum distillation equipment as many refineries in the United States have done.
Here is the Reuters-UK article discussing this all:
http://uk.reuters.com/...
"BRUSSELS/CALGARY, Oct 7 (Reuters) - A European Union plan to label Canadian tar sands oil as highly polluting as part of its fight against climate change has been abandoned after years of opposition from Canada, clearing the way for exports of tar sands crude to the European market."
It looks like this occurred during EU's trade negotiations with Canada (I think this may have been a part of the
TTIP negotiation.).
All of this is clearly not good news for limiting the extent of Alberta tar sands extraction, processing, production and shipments. The other problem is that it seems that the EU is elevating tar sands imports over following its own environmental policies which tried to identify Alberta tar sands crude as a high greenhouse gas intensity feedstock which was to be avoided under those now-ignored EU policies.