Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Chinese demand for the Alberta oil sands — the second largest reserve of crude on the planet — puts the United States in the difficult position of balancing its commitment to open markets with its desire for secure supplies of energy, says Alberta’s new envoy to Washington.
Enbridge Inc. may offer an equity stake in a Canadian oil sands pipeline to a Chinese investor, but is concentrating efforts on attracting shippers for the C$2.5 billion ($2 billion) proposal, a spokesman said on Thursday.
A major Chinese state-owned oil and gas company confirmed Monday it is interested in investing in Alberta’s oilsands, as the world’s most populous country seeks energy sources to fuel its growing economy.
An Ohio refinery is widening its use of synthetic crude oil – made from tar stripped from Canadian sand. The problem is, according to Jim Meyer, tar cannot be extracted and turned into oil fast enough to make up for the expected fall in conventional oil production.
Canada’s known natural gas reserves continue to decline even though a record number of wells were drilled in 2003, the energy industry announced Thursday.
Canadian Natural Resources says high prices for steel, fuel and labour could boost the cost of the first phase of its Horizon oil sands project in northern Alberta by nearly 35 per cent — to $6.6-billion.
The University of Calgary has recruited two international heavy oil experts to chase some oil sands dreams, notably ways to refine raw bitumen underground as “Canada cannot sustain for … more than probably 20 years the use of natural gas and diluent to produce bitumen.”
Energy tycoon Boone Pickens says “we’ve seen $40 oil for the last time” and expects “$10 natural gas” probably within “four months”
China’s Communist rulers have a blunt message for anyone who frets about the planned Chinese takeover of Canada’s biggest mining company: Get ready for more to come.
As oil settles at over $50 a barrel for the second day in a row (four if you include the weekend) I am visiting one of the only places on Earth which really does have an expanding hydrocarbon supply.
I’m glad to see the surge of interest in the coming peak of world oil production, even though the prospect is grim. Once again, people are willing to think about non-renewable resources and the consequences of an economy based on them. ….Most of the new information stems from the work of two little-known scientists, both deceased: petroleum geologist M. King Hubbert and systems ecologist Howard Odum.
Analysts at Deutsche Bank believe that, after 2008, almost half the opportunities for oil companies will be in LNG, GTL and the Venezuelan and Canadian oil sands, with deep water projects making up another quarter of the expected openings. But oil companies diverge on the need to get into such projects.
