Canada Pulls Plug On F-35

[Pielstick]

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/...f-35-purchase/

Interesting. I'd bet Boeing have got somebody sitting by the phone now waiting to take an order from Canada for a bunch of Super Hornets

Any thoughts on what this might mean for the wider F-35 programme? My money is on Norway being the next to cancel their order.

BTW, check out the graphic comparing contemporary jets. Someone didn't do their homework very well, nor did they proof read it

[Menelik_I]

The USA deserves the slap, being letting down Canada over the Keystone Tar Sands pipeline for too long.

Why buy overpriced Jets from US when US refuse to buy Canadian oil.

[Caelius]

Jumping the gun yet again dude.

Latest word is that the office of PM Stephen Harper is denying that a decision had been reached to nix the F-35.

http://www.politico.com/morningdefen....html?hp=l6_b7
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...buy-f-35s.html

[Pielstick]

The plot thickens.

[xcorps]

The USA deserves the slap, being letting down Canada over the Keystone Tar Sands pipeline for too long.

Why buy overpriced Jets from US when US refuse to buy Canadian oil.

I know this is off topic, but that's totally wrong. The oil (low grade heavy sour) wasn't ever going to go to US markets. It was going to Gulf Coast refineries notably the Valero refinery (which was upgraded to enhance production from low grade heavy sour crude) which would then be sold (by Valero) to markets in South America and Europe. Valero's interest in the pipeline stems from the market advantage it would receive from increased supply allowing it to undercut competitors in those markets.

Gas prices in the US would have been driven up.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The additional crude (from Keystone XL) strategically aligns with our projects to increase ultra-low sulfur diesel production at our Port Arthur refinery, which can process heavy feedstocks into clean products.

Long term, our strategy has always been to get Canadian heavy crude to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Now, we also see long term that the Canadian crude oil production will continue to grow. And even though this pricing and costs and all of that certainly are issues for the Canadian producers, part of our strategy is to bring Canadian crude oil to the U.S. Gulf Coast. And as many of you that follow us know, we have been working with TransCanada and ConocoPhillips on the Keystone Pipeline project to bring that type of crude oil, in our case, to Port Arthur, Texas. And we think that that will go.Bill Klesse, CEO and Chairman, Valero Energy Corporation
But the U.S. can compete and can compete especially from the U.S. Gulf Coast in the export business… We have record exports coming from the United States, now it’s over 800,000 barrels a day. Valero has been exporting over 200,000 barrels a day sending diesel fuel to Europe. During the other season, we send diesel fuel to South America (…) So there is lot of change that’s happened in this business. Part of it has been refinery operations in Venezuela and Mexico, some are not going to come back anytime soon. Curacao, that refinery is down. You just can look around a lot of places and see that there is an opportunity here to put products into these markets…..
On our major projects, and we have more to show you on this, but we have our hydrocracker projects that we started. We actually ordered the equipment in September of 2006. We stopped those projects in 2009 because of the financial crisis recession. We’ve restarted those. We’re going to have those finished. The one at Port Arthur in mid-2012 and the one at St. Charles at the end of ‘12 and you’ll see here what a contribution they will make to our company. Because what they do and I’ll talk a little more, but we primarily make diesel fuel there … We want the diesel fuel, because we see that’s where the growth is…

Now on the hydrocrackers, if you look at the world, diesel fuel is growing at least two times faster than gasoline’s growing. It’s already a 25 million barrel-a-day business in the world versus gasoline in the 22 million or 23 million barrels a day. We’ve mentioned that the U.S. Gulf Coast we believe we can export and if hydrocrackers, if we add one other point, you can see that the diesel crack today is at least twice the gasoline crack, maybe almost three times.

Quotes from CEO's of Valero http://bit.ly/zEOPrd

Now I realize that report is generated by a bunch of tree huggers, but it is accurate.

[mrmouth]

It isnt a settled issue, either. Obama will make a final decision on this (at least as far as his administration is concerned) early next year. He could very well let it go forward.

But that doesn't matter. It has no positive effect for the US and a lot of possible negatives. And we already buy significant amounts of Canadian oil.

[xcorps]

It isnt a settled issue, either. Obama will make a final decision on this (at least as far as his administration is concerned) early next year. He could very well let it go forward.

But that doesn't matter. It has no positive effect for the US and a lot of possible negatives. And we already buy significant amounts of Canadian oil.

It does have the effect of raising job numbers, temporarily for contstruction and permanently at the refinery and pipeline maintenance.

The question is if a few thousand temporary jobs and about a 100 permanent jobs is worth the negative. I've reversed my thinking since the summer to No.

[Heinz Guderian]

Any endeavour which seeks to bring together hawks of several nations to spend vast sums on a new machine which will probably only be used to accidently bomb Afghan kids should fail.

If the Canadians do pull out, then we know that Satan hasnt won yet.

[Stavroforos]

I have nothing against the F-35, but it's not a plane which Canada needed, at all. Too bad they pulled the plug now rather than realizing this years ago when they initially set out to purchase the plane.

[Condottiere 40K]

Unit price is going to go through the roof. Wait ...

[Mangalore]

Somehow I'm halfway expecting a masterstroke of Chinese strategy by simply impounding US' super jets in exchange for foreign debt. Luckily reality doesn't work that way... it would be wacky fun though.

[Col. Tartleton]

Somehow I'm halfway expecting a masterstroke of Chinese strategy by simply impounding US' super jets in exchange for foreign debt. Luckily reality doesn't work that way... it would be wacky fun though.

Just one would pay off a lot of the debt in terms of how much this technology is worth to the Reds.

We don't owe China that much money, these things are worth billion dollar stacks to the Chinese. They can't even make stuff that competes with our last generation. We're already working on the next generation after these. These are a stop gap between the current stuff, which is already the tits, and the ridiculous stuff they're making in Area 51.

You know, X Wings and .

[eizo]

Canadians are just so cool at everything that its just scary...
The moment they find a way to weaponize hockey sticks the world is ed

[conon394]

Any endeavour which seeks to bring together hawks of several nations to spend vast sums on a new machine which will probably only be used to accidently bomb Afghan kids should fail.

Huh?

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I have nothing against the F-35, but it's not a plane which Canada needed, at all. Too bad they pulled the plug now rather than realizing this years ago when they initially set out to purchase the plane.

Well whatever you think of global warming I think the reality of arctic thawing is here to stay... As such Canada will want to make sure it can back up its claims to any resource or revenue that results- some high end fighters might be useful - vs just more CF-18s

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Why buy overpriced Jets from US when US refuse to buy Canadian oil.

Who says it overpriced, expensive maybe but overpriced is rather harder to quantify.

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Somehow I'm halfway expecting a masterstroke of Chinese strategy by simply impounding US' super jets in exchange for foreign debt. Luckily reality doesn't work that way... it would be wacky fun though.

What is with the myth China owns all US debt?

[Mangalore]

What is with the myth China owns all US debt?

What is with reading comprehension?

Just one would pay off a lot of the debt in terms of how much this technology is worth to the Reds.

We don't owe China that much money, these things are worth billion dollar stacks to the Chinese. ...

1 trillion is more than a few billion dollars and it is kind of worrisome to call it "not that much".

btw: You two did understand that the relativating term "Luckily reality doesn't work that way..." would imply that I don't believe what I said earlier? I mainly want to get entertained and that would be a hilarious thing. Luckily reality doesn't work that way...

[Col. Tartleton]

What is with reading comprehension?

1 trillion is more than a few billion dollars and it is kind of worrisome to call it "not that much".

It's kind of hard for me to worry about a trillion dollars when we're going further than that into debt every year.

A trillion is a thousand billion. We could put serious dents in our debts by selling our military secrets.

Even if we outfitted the Chinese and everyone else's military with all our best gear we would beat them.

Our style is impetuous, our defense is impregnable, and we're just ferocious. We want your heart! We want to eat your children! Praise be to Allah!

We're America. We invented flying. Everyone else is ripping off our idea. They aren't even innovating, because we're still better than everyone else a hundred years running. They're still riding our .

[Stavroforos]

The other nations which have claims on the Arctic circle, Russia and the US, will be hard for any amount of Canadian military equipment to scare off. That only leaves the Scandinavians.

[conon394]

The other nations which have claims on the Arctic circle, Russia and the US, will be hard for any amount of Canadian military equipment to scare off. That only leaves the Scandinavians.

Of course I did not mean to say Canada was going to seize all the Arctic, but it does help to have muscle to back up your claims as everyone haggles out details. SInce we are taking about decades here given Russia population issues and still heavy dependace on natural resources I'm not sure how well you can count on them be the same player in a decade or two.

[Col. Tartleton]

Of course I did not mean to say Canada was going to seize all the Arctic, but it does help to have muscle to back up your claims as everyone haggles out details. SInce we are taking about decades here given Russia population issues and still heavy dependace on natural resources I'm not sure how well you can count on them be the same player in a decade or two.

My understanding was that the demographic issues have corrected.

I remember Forbes having an article within the near past which in short was "Putin's a tremendous dickwad, but he salvaged Russia."

[conon394]

I remember Forbes having an article within the near past which in short was "Putin's a tremendous dickwad, but he salvaged Russia."

Good call there I forgot that article, but still its only pushed Russia back to typical Western European Standards, and given I have my doubts about the Putin's systems staying stable - I think I'd bet on Canada's more diverse, less corrupt and autocratic economy over 25 years especially when you figure Canada immigration edge.

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edit - there is a lot of Hate out there for the F-35. But I curious why anyone can find lots of stories about it as troubled program or trillion dollar one etc. I wonder can anyone find similar numbers for all the planes it is supposed to replace, over what is 30 or 50 years from development to all use and maintenance costs in adjusted dollars? How about the say the comparable aircraft form say 1960 -1990 or so again all costs and correctly adjusted.

There are a lot of valid problems withe the F-35 - the production while testing is clearly a mistake, and I think the Marine VSTOL need should likely have been a separate 4.5 gen aircraft where making VSTOL (and making it a lot more safe than on the harrier) and ground support the core of the airframe. But at this point I think we are stuck in the bed we made. One thing I think the US could do to restore confidence is another other review but with retired experts from non USA buyers buyers - Japan, Canada, the UK etc. Give them real access and clearance and let them evaluate the whole program and see what they think compared to Pentagon insiders or even the comparable report from US groups that are supposed to independent.

But that that being said its not like the latest wonder aircraft from Airbus or Boeing in the commercial sector came without massive delays, issues and cost overages... cutting edge planes are just well hard to make.