On the value added and upgrading in the refining sector, it's a global market. It's one in which the capital investments are extremely large. They typically occur over long cycles where you expect to have a return on your investment, with stability and with market growth and activities. In North America, the market for refined petroleum products is declining, and it's projected to continue to decline, while in Asia and the Pacific you see it growing tremendously over the next 20 years.
From an investment point of view, this is a declining market in North America, and we already have the existing infrastructure. In Canada, we have a refining capacity of about 1.9 million barrels a day, and we currently produce 1.6 million barrels a day. There are 300,000 barrels a day of production that are not being used. That's capital that's idle and, generally speaking, on investment and capital you want to maximize your production and output.
In broad terms, there hasn't been a new refinery opened in North America I think since the mid-eighties. We've seen a consolidation of the refineries, but we've seen an expansion of some of the existing facilities and an upgrading of those facilities to make them more efficient. Refineries generally are capital-cost intensive; they really follow and track differential, their ability to attract and lock into finding the crude inputs and the feedstock.
They want to typically be located in the markets because there are different standards, environmental performance requirements, and different features, and they change seasonally. Gasoline is different in the summer than it is in the winter. There are warm climates and cool climates, etc. There are the distribution costs about how you get it intermodally between warehousing and then to your retail market. Then there's sort of the issue of contamination: when you move it through pipeline infrastructure, you increase the risk of contaminating the product. It means that you have to handle it more carefully and be a lot more careful with it, because it does get contaminated when it's transported over longer distances.
Your ability to reduce those risks as a business improves your ability to maximize your return.