Free Republic

A decision on whether to allow the Keystone XL Pipeline to be built in the U.S. could come at any time, but there are myriad other projects on the table designed to do exactly what Keystone XL was designed to do: transport Canadian tar sands oil to refineries. Those pipelines, both in the U.S. and Canada, are being designed to move the oily bitumen produced from the tar sands to refineries in Texas and eastern Canada, and to ports on the Pacific Coast where the oil could be shipped to Asia. Combined, the pipelines would be able to carry more...

Shell Canada Ltd. has withdrawn its regulatory application for the proposed Pierre River heavy oil mine north of Fort McMurray. The Pierre River Mine (PRM) application outlined a proposal for 200,000 b/d. The project “remains a very long-term opportunity for us, but it’s not currently a priority,” said Lorraine Mitchelmore, Shell Canada president and executive vice-president, heavy oil. “We will continue to hold the leases and can reapply in the future when the time is right,” she said. PRM had been joined with an application for a 100,000-b/d expansion of the Jackpine Mine, but Shell separated the applications in 2009....

Alison Redford’s cabinet is expected to decide in January whether the government will spend $10 million to study the idea of building a rail line to ship oilsands products from northern Alberta to a port in Alaska. The money would help pay for a $40-million study that will investigate the feasibility of a proposed 2,400-kilometre rail line to carry landlocked oilsands products from Fort McMurray to Delta Junction, Alaska. From there, Alberta’s oil would flow through the Trans-Alaska Pipeline system to the Valdez Marine Terminal, and on to booming Asian markets. The proposal has been in the works for more...

The Alberta government is paying the price for the success of efforts to develop the oilsands and the failure to develop pipelines to get that oil to market. The price - as measured by what is known as the differential, or discount, from global benchmark crudes - is currently about $29 on each of the 2.5 million barrels of oil pumped every day in Canada's biggest oil-producing province. That works out to $72.5 million a day. Over a year, that's $26.5 billion of potential revenue not circulating in the provincial economy. Finance Minister Doug Horner cited widening differentials as the...

A series of unlikely events over a span of 113 million years has resulted in the discovery of what may be the oldest dinosaur remains in Alberta's history. On Monday afternoon, a shovel operator at a Suncor oilsands mine site noticed what looked like brown discs in the black rock on a small cliff he was excavating. Per Suncor's policy, operator Shawn Funk shut off his machinery and reported that he'd found something unusual. "It was really like finding a needle in a haystack," said Suncor spokeswoman Lanette Lundquist. The area remained closed to work while Suncor took pictures of...

Appealing to Canadian nationalism, Suncor Energy Inc. and Petro-Canada said Monday that a proposed merger between the two oil players would create the country's largest energy company and provide the oil patch with protection against potential foreign buyouts. "I don't know if it is a marriage made in heaven. But it is a match made in Canada," said Suncor's president and CEO Rick George in announcing the all-stock deal to create a $43 billion behemoth. "This will truly be a flagship Canadian corporation," he said at a Calgary news conference. The proposed arrangement, announced Monday, would see Petro-Canada equity holders...

How high-tech prospectors are trying to squeeze fuel--and fat profits--out of the earth while transforming the petroleum market Much as the storied forty-niners trekked west in their covered wagons to seek a golden future, today a small army of workers boards a fleet of jets each week in Edmonton, Canada, and ventures north into a frozen frontier rich with promise. These latter-day pioneers don't have campfires, but they do have camps--comfortable dormitories with Internet kiosks, catered steak dinners, fitness centers, and satellite TV in every room. The creature comforts come courtesy of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., one of a dozen...

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...

Jim Landers: The oil flurry in McMurray Canadian boomtown is full of cash, short of workers and housing FORT McMURRAY, Alberta – Wal-Mart manager Ed Wirun has vacancies for 60 employees. Bob Simpson copes with 400 percent annual turnover at the four McDonald's restaurants he runs. Mike Allen recalls his exasperated Campbell's Music store manager declaring, "That's it, boss. Just give me some warm bodies." This small city that services Canada's oil sands boom is a happy-days economy pushed past the ideal. There are far more jobs than workers, more renters than rental properties, more buyers than homes and more...

Along a giant patch of Canada's Far North, where moose outnumber people, a vital part of America's energy future seeps out of riverbanks and is hidden below soft prairie grass. ... In the north of the remote Alberta province rests the equivalent of 1.7 trillion barrels of oil. An estimated 176 billion barrels is recoverable with today's technology, and perhaps twice that amount is potentially recoverable. But this oil can't be pumped from the ground the conventional way. It's spread across more than 54,000 square miles, about the size of North Carolina, and is mixed with sand and clay. "It's...