It costs about $35/bbl to extract oil from the oil sands.
‘’’’’’’’
Wow.
Somewhere out there the price of oil will bust. Not in the next 5-6 years. But sometime after 2020 imho. (for reasons that include rising overseas production as other countries learn to frack. And falling demand as natural gas trucks and buses and electric cars take a bite out of demand—but the latter is probably a decade off. That said I think it will happen.)
The oil sands will survive.
Fracked well have a very very long tail. The long tail costs are in the $40@barrel range.
I should clarify that there’s also the matter of royalties to the government — those vary, according to the world price of oil — I think they’re about $40/bbl now. Then there’s transportation costs. Still, even when everything’s factored in, I can’t disagree with what you’re saying.