I haven’t really seen a simple explanation to the OP, so I’ll provide my opinion.
I attribute it to efficient allocation of resources. As others have noted, there are existing refineries with excess capacity able to process the oilsands product.
Several American refineries have invested in technologies to deal with the more viscous oilsands product and it would be extremely costly to build a new refinery when you already have several ones willing and able to take the product.
Essentially, a new Canadian refinery is too late to the game.
Regarding oilsands vs tar sands, I’ve heard energy companies and the media use oilsands. I generally only hear tar sands from environmentalists.
So oilsands almost ties tar sands in Google after a concerted effort by the oil industry to push the name…
i wonder how may oil industry publications and style guide enforcement efforts it took to tie “Tar Sands”? I really don’t care if the environmentalists prefer Tar, or the tar industry prefer “oil”, but for 30 years AFAIK it was called the tar sands. The rest is PR.
Actually, the cites I’ve posted show that it has been called tar sands for a hundred years, and oil sands for at least 70 years - and both terms have been used almost interchangeably by most people.
The “PR” of the semantics has only become an issue within the last decade or so.
