Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper spoke bluntly about the rationale for approving the Keystone XL pipeline during a visit to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York yesterday. Canadian energy exports are critically important to the country’s economy, which has suffered in recent years from a lack of market access for its crude oil…. Keep reading →
The controversial Keystone XL Pipeline was very much on the agenda at today’s FT Global Investment Series: Focus on Canada event held in New York City, with government officials and business leaders using strong language to underline the importance of US – Canadian trade relations with regard to the pipeline.
“For the record, I would note that is no small irritant to some in Canada that our American friends focus on the current and future emissions from the oil sands while, here in the United States, a far greater environmental impact is caused by hundreds of coal-fired plants that remain in operation,” said Jim Prentice, Senior Executive Vice President and Vice Chairman at CIBC. Keep reading →
Canada’s oil sands have been all over the news in the context of the Keystone XL pipeline project that would ship upgraded crude oil and diluted bitumen from Northern Alberta to the US Gulf Coast refining center.
Breaking Energy toured the region and visited some oil sands production projects as part of a media tour organized by the Canadian Consulate General in NY and the Government of Alberta last November. If Keystone XL has become a big deal in the US, the push and pull between environmental consequences and economic benefits at the heart of oil sands development is probably an even bigger deal across the northern border. Keep reading →
The Keystone oil pipeline may have won approval from Nebraska’s governor Tuesday, but the final decision rests with President Obama.
And after the heavy emphasis on climate change in his inaugural speech Monday, analysts say Obama is likely to feel even more pressure to reject the pipeline. Keep reading →
Oil sands producers found themselves in the midst of a fresh attack from the environmental community when a new study released Monday identified levels of oil sands-related contamination that appear to have intensified since the beginning of commercial development to present day. Core samples extracted from 6 regional lakes showed the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons up to 50 miles north of Fort McMurray, Alberta – the hub of oil sands mining activity.
“Our research tells a consistent story of increased contaminants and ecological change that has occurred in the region since industrial development of bitumen resources began,” Joshua Kurek, a postdoctoral fellow at Queen’s University, Department of Biology is quoted as saying on the university’s website. Keep reading →
The iconic image associated with Canada’s oil sands development is that of a huge open pit mine, gargantuan dump trucks and enormous tailings ponds, but this production method is being outmoded as producers move to develop deeper bitumen deposits. Although it relies on a relatively young technology, in situ oil sands development is the wave of the future in Northern Alberta’s oil patch.
Commercial oil sands mining operations date back to the 1960′s and the technology that undergirds the process continues to evolve. Notably, some of the most interesting new technology is invisible, as companies are using horizontal drilling technology to recover oil from deposits located greater than 200 feet below ground. These deeper deposits account for 80 percent of total proven oil sands reserves and are expected to account for 80 percent of total oil sands production over the medium term, from about 50 percent mining and 50 percent in situ today. Keep reading →
Encana and Ferus LNG enter into joint venture to build liquefied natural gas fuel plant in Western Canada http://ow.ly/gd4cg encanacorp
Sustained growth in spending on exploration and production across the globe will focus on plays outside North America, a survey from a global bank concludes, despite the country’s growing profile and its potential to become the top global crude producer in coming decades.
Global exploration-and-production spending is poised to reach a record $644 billion by the end of 2013, a semi-annual Barclays analysis predicts. The spending report also foresees strong oil prices, which have emerged as the principal bellwether for growth in E&P budgets. Keep reading →
The holy trinity for energy is cheap, reliable and clean, but science has yet to unlock a source that provides all three without limits. In the meantime, the challenge for energy producers, consumers and regulators is to negotiate tradeoffs between these ideals in order to find the most acceptable energy solutions for modern society. There are few places in the world where this delicate negotiation between environmental cleanliness, affordability and reliability is more pronounced than in Canada’s oil sands producing region.
Canada boasts the world’s third largest proven oil reserves, which are primarily attributed to the oil sands, located in Northern Alberta. Oil sands are a natural mixture of sand, water, clay and heavy oil referred to as bitumen. Alberta contains 170.8 billion barrels of proven oil reserves – 169.3 billion barrels of bitumen and 1.5 billion barrels of conventional oil. The province is about the size of Texas and produces approximately 1.6 million barrels of crude oil per day from the oil sands, which accounts for about half of Canada’s total crude oil production. Keep reading →
Canadian Prime Minister Harper ‘optimistic’ for U.S. pipeline approval http://huff.to/YQyvbJ HuffPostGreen
Jared Anderson
Conway Irwin
Peter Gardett