Editing Bitumen (section)

=== Non-upgraded crude bitumen ===
{{See also|Western Canadian Select}}
Canadian bitumen does not differ substantially from oils such as Venezuelan extra-heavy and Mexican [[heavy crude oil|heavy oil]] in chemical composition, and the real difficulty is moving the extremely viscous bitumen through [[oil pipeline]]s to the refinery. Many modern oil refineries are extremely sophisticated and can process non-upgraded bitumen directly into products such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and refined asphalt without any preprocessing. This is particularly common in areas such as the US [[Gulf coast]], where refineries were designed to process Venezuelan and Mexican oil, and in areas such as the US [[Midwest]] where refineries were rebuilt to process heavy oil as domestic light oil production declined. Given the choice, such heavy oil refineries usually prefer to buy bitumen rather than synthetic oil because the cost is lower, and in some cases because they prefer to produce more diesel fuel and less gasoline.<ref name=CAPP2015/> By 2015 Canadian production and exports of non-upgraded bitumen exceeded that of synthetic crude oil at over {{convert|1.3|Moilbbl}} per day, of which about 65% was exported to the United States.<ref name=NEBstats/>

Because of the difficulty of moving crude bitumen through pipelines, non-upgraded bitumen is usually diluted with [[natural-gas condensate]] in a form called [[dilbit]] or with synthetic crude oil, called [[synbit]]. However, to meet international competition, much non-upgraded bitumen is now sold as a blend of multiple grades of bitumen, conventional crude oil, synthetic crude oil, and condensate in a standardized benchmark product such as [[Western Canadian Select]]. This sour, heavy crude oil blend is designed to have uniform refining characteristics to compete with internationally marketed heavy oils such as [[Petroleum industry in Mexico|Mexican Mayan]] or Arabian [[Dubai Crude]].<ref name=CAPP2015/>