Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The oil sands of Alberta
CBS News ^ | CBS, various

Posted on 01/24/2006 5:21:01 AM PST by djf

The Oil Sands Of Alberta Jan. 22, 2005 (CBS)

(CBS) There’s an oil boom going on right now. Not in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or any of those places, but 600 miles north of Montana.

In Alberta, Canada, in a town called Fort McMurray where, this time of year, the temperature sometimes zooms up to zero.

The oilmen up there aren’t digging holes in the sand and hoping for a spout. They’re digging up dirt — dirt that is saturated with oil. They’re called oil sands, and if you’ve never heard of them then you’re in for a big surprise because the reserves are so vast in the province of Alberta that they will help solve America’s energy needs for the next century.

Within a few years, the oil sands are likely to become more important to the United States than all the oil that comes to us from Saudi Arabia.

(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Canada; Culture/Society; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alberta; canada; energy; fortmcmurray; oil; oilsand
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-100 last
To: Fierce Allegiance

:D yup, last year working there i was in * camp *...the only bills i had was running my house in New-Brunswick and car insurance...:D


81 posted on 01/24/2006 3:34:06 PM PST by kajingawd (" happy with stone underhead, let Heaven and Earth go about their changes")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: kajingawd

Near St John? I went to the 1880's club there once, had a great time. Jennifer Mac somnething from Ontario. Navy girl. Oh to be a young coastie again.


82 posted on 01/24/2006 3:35:58 PM PST by Fierce Allegiance (Rapidly nearing the third quarter of life.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]

To: djf

Maybe we should invite Alberta to join our Union. Canada could get Maine and Vermont in exchange.


83 posted on 01/24/2006 3:36:36 PM PST by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Fierce Allegiance

bout an 1 1/2 hours from St-John...small french cajun fishing village...


84 posted on 01/24/2006 3:38:02 PM PST by kajingawd (" happy with stone underhead, let Heaven and Earth go about their changes")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 82 | View Replies]

To: thackney

The cutoff to profitably extract heavy oil from oil sand is $29/barrel.

The oil sands have been profitable for quite some time.


85 posted on 01/24/2006 3:40:58 PM PST by beaver fever
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 22 | View Replies]

To: wolfcreek

US burns 20 million barrels of oil a day, the rest of the world 60 million barrels a day. US imports 14 million barrels a day. If the US stopped importing 14 million barrels a day, that would drop needed world production outside the US from 74 to 60 mbl, which would move the world peak oil point from 2016 to 2018. That is, if it happens now. It won't happen until after 2016, so it won't matter at all.


86 posted on 01/24/2006 3:43:39 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: djf

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/07/28/news/the_west/thuwes03.prt

January 24, 2006

Energy bill invites oil shale development

By JENNIFER TALHELM
Associated Press writer

WASHINGTON — Buried in this year's energy bill amid the provisions offering incentives for corn farm-ers and the coal and nuclear industries, is a plan to spur development of oil shale and tar sands that could have profound effects in Western states.

Advocates say Utah, Colorado and Wyoming have enough of the petroleum-filled rock and tarry gravel that the U.S. could one day go head-to-head with the Middle East in petroleum production. They just have to be able to get to it.

After years of virtually ignoring the vast deposits of oil shale and tar sands, the energy bill, which law-makers are expected to consider before they leave for their August recess, dramatically reverses the nation's approach to oil shale, opening the door within a few years to companies that want to tap deposits on public lands.

Enthusiasts point to successful tar sand operations in Canada as evidence that it could work here and say that if just the available oil shale and tar sand were used, the U.S. would no longer have to depend on foreign oil.

"We have more recoverable oil in Utah and Colorado than in the Middle East," Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, a Republican who has been a leading proponent of oil shale development, said in a statement. "Utah imports nearly one-fourth of its oil from Canada tar sands, even though we have a larger tar sands resource in the state that until now has remained undeveloped. This is a big win for Utah."

Others say they're afraid the bill moves development too fast — faster even than energy companies are ready for.

In a conference call with reporters Wednesday, Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., said he thought the bill "put the cart ahead of the horse."

"I frankly am disappointed," Salazar said of the oil shale provisions. "I think they created the potential for an oil shale boom where in fact we still have a lot to learn about whether oil shale is a viable resource."

Oil shale has been a sleeper issue in debates about the energy bill. Unlike issues such as nuclear fuel storage and oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, oil shale hasn't really been talked about.

It is estimated there are more than 1 trillion barrels of recoverable oil from oil shale in the Western United States, the richest geographically concentrated oil shale and tar sands resource in the world.

Most is concentrated in the Green River Basin in northwestern Colorado, northeastern Utah and southern Wyoming.

Although proponents, including Hatch, are enthusiastic about the potential, many Colorado residents in particular are wary because of their experience with oil shale development in the 1970s.

In part because of the energy crisis then, the federal government leased tracts of land in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming and pre-empted local regulations to help oil shale companies that promised to create thou-sands of jobs and develop a new source of oil.

It all went bust, however, when the oil shale industry collapsed after the oil market went soft in the 1980s.

Advocates now are pushing the issue again. They say this time, the technologies have improved, the envi-ronmental regulations are tougher and — possibly most important — the price of oil is unlikely to bottom out again.

They point out that the bill requires a lengthy environmental impact study for the three states that are most affected. It requires the Interior Department to work with state and local officials.

It also would enable the federal government to start issuing commercial leases within a few years.

The commercial leasing provision worries Salazar, and it has environmentalists predicting problems for the future. They are concerned about what oil shale extraction will do to the water, air and land.

"I think the potential end result is we'll end up with large tracts of our public lands subjected to ill-conceived or only partially planned mining and development," said Steve Smith, the Denver-based assistant regional director for the Wilderness Society. "And we'll have to then go back and clean up the damage."





truth_seeker comments:

The "sticky stuff" (old oilfield term) is in these formations. The Canadians have recently been at work, perhaps with federal and or provincial subsidization of this industry.

We have a bunch in the US, and by cutting through timetables for environmental redtape, could ramp up in a few years.

Of course we should also be drilling ANWR, offshore Gulf of Mexico, Pacific Coast and Atlantic.

Notice dem Senator Salazar negative toward this.


87 posted on 01/24/2006 3:57:37 PM PST by truth_seeker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: truth_seeker
"The "sticky stuff" (old oilfield term) is in these formations. The Canadians have recently been at work, perhaps with federal and or provincial subsidization of this industry."

The oil sands and the heavy oil industry in Alberta has been privately funded for the last thirty years.

And the oil sands are not a recent development. The technology for extraction first began in the late eighties.

American addiction to Saudi sweet crude has put them 20 years behind in development of tar sands and heavy oil.

In order to develop the small amount of oil sands heavy oil you will have to sell your resources to Canadian companies that know how to do it and you will have to buy that technology from Canadian producers. Chinese energy companies will buy US heavy oil resources and infrastructure from third parties.

Shale is a low yield high input energy resource. It's a niche resource for the next 20 years at least.
88 posted on 01/24/2006 6:40:03 PM PST by beaver fever
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 87 | View Replies]

To: beaver fever

"In order to develop the small amount of oil sands heavy oil you will have to sell your resources to Canadian companies that know how to do it and you will have to buy that technology from Canadian producers."

I doubt it is a "small" amount.

Many US companies had pilot and demonstration projects, as per the article, and per my personal knowledge. Parachute Creek, Colorado, Union Oil, Dept. of Navy, etc.

I expect the US can get this job done, with minimal outside resources. I don't say that to in any way minimize the expertice of the Canadian companies.


89 posted on 01/24/2006 6:50:29 PM PST by truth_seeker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 88 | View Replies]

To: truth_seeker
By small I meant oil sands.The US has large amounts of oil shale but oil sands resources are scarce IIRC.

If you do want to exploit US oil sands resources you will have to resort to Canadian engineers and suppliers who are twenty years ahead of you.

This isn't a dig it is an economic fact.

Oil sands sat on the back burner due to low oil prices but they managed to crack the technology in terms of processing and mining on a shoestring budget over twenty years.

Nobody knows more than Canadian companies about how to economically extract heavy oil. Many Texas companies have made a fortune because they saw the potential early.
90 posted on 01/24/2006 6:59:32 PM PST by beaver fever
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 89 | View Replies]

To: COBOL2Java

Looks like the way goldminers in Fairbanks treated the 100' of frozen overburden before they sluiced it away with water giants. Driving steam points was high tech a century ago.


91 posted on 01/24/2006 7:03:59 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: One Proud Dad
Too bad out State Dept, stupid Congressmen, and others won't let us cut off the Arabs from the supply line once we start utilizing that resource ( in about 30 years ). In a perfect world we would be extracting in 2 years and totally quit buying overseas. All the "One World Economy" jackasses will start clamoring about not fair to make the other countries economies tank.

Amen!
92 posted on 01/24/2006 7:09:18 PM PST by fallujah-nuker (America needs more SAC and less empty sacs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: soloNYer
I saw this on 60 Minutes last week. I wish I saved it, but was struck by the softball questions because it is Canada, not the US which is extracting the oil. Apparantly, there were no "environmental activists" trying to stop it unlike ANWR, and the interviewer actually asked isn't it true that the US is exploiting Canada's find? Another biased report: Canada ripping up the landscape for oil to help the country = good; the US wanting to drill in ANWR (and exploiting poor Canada) = bad.

Congratulations on using the correct acronym, I wish I had a nickel for each time I see someone call it ANWAR. Makes me want to post a picture of Anwar Sadat.
93 posted on 01/24/2006 7:11:50 PM PST by fallujah-nuker (America needs more SAC and less empty sacs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: saganite
...The one oil company that should be blocked however is Citgo...



"You just be that way Yanqui, I find another man take me to the dance."

94 posted on 01/24/2006 7:18:35 PM PST by fallujah-nuker (America needs more SAC and less empty sacs.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: djf
Not in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait or any of those places, but 600 miles north of Montana.

You're kidding, right? There isn't anything 600 miles north of Montana.

95 posted on 01/24/2006 7:21:07 PM PST by Stentor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: soloNYer

http://www.hgcareers.com/js/static/search/2/submit_All/jobIndustry_1091/job/Oil-Gas-Field-Services-jobs


96 posted on 01/24/2006 7:37:14 PM PST by daybreakcoming (May God bless those who enter the valley of the shadow of death so that we may see the light of day.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: daybreakcoming

whoops - forgot to mention regarding the link I posted above that Halliburton Energy Services is up there and hiring.


97 posted on 01/24/2006 7:39:14 PM PST by daybreakcoming (May God bless those who enter the valley of the shadow of death so that we may see the light of day.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 96 | View Replies]

To: djf

It's called the Grand Staircase Escalante National Park - set up by Bill Clinton to force utilities to buy coal from Indonesia.


98 posted on 01/24/2006 8:18:31 PM PST by OrioleFan (Republicans believe every day is July 4th, DemocRATs believe every day is April 15th. - Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: One Proud Dad
All the "One World Economy" jackasses will start clamoring about not fair to make the other countries economies tank.

As far as the countries that support terrorism go, I won't be sad to see THEIR economies crash. Let them wallow in the mud until they become civil.

99 posted on 01/25/2006 3:53:18 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Jack Murtha: America's best-known EX-marine)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: djf; All

For all you Freepers looking for more info on the Canadian oil sands, go to this site:

http://www.oilsandsdiscovery.com

Yes, it's true. They even have a visitors center up in Fort McMurray.


100 posted on 02/08/2006 1:30:21 PM PST by MplsSteve
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-100 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson