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Alberta sands help feed U.S. hunger, but require extra energy to produce
By Renee Schoof
McClatchy Newspapers
Published on Sunday, Oct 12, 2008
FORT McMURRAY, ALBERTA: For decades, the United States has vowed to reduce its dependence on imported oil and to find a reliable source to meet the nation's growing needs.
Now, Canada offers a solution.
While oil supplies are dwindling in some places, or are disrupted by hurricanes, threatened by terrorist attacks or controlled by hostile governments, Alberta's oil sands — a patch of forest about the size of Florida with a sea of oil beneath it — produce more crude than all the wells in Texas or Alaska.
With more than 170 billion barrels, the oil sands are the second-largest proven reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia.
Because of the Alberta oil sands, Canada has become the largest supplier of crude oil to the United States. The oil sands are booming, and production is expected to triple in a little more than a decade.
Also growing are the environmental costs — higher greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil and long-term destruction of a swath of deep forest.
In the past few months, Alberta officials have announced new environmental policies and plans to invest $4 billion Canadian ($3.7 billion U.S.) to cut emissions. What's clear so far is that they're facing an environmental problem — supersized.
''We're an energy province. We're now producing record amounts of oil. We have the potential to actually increase our production of oil,'' said Alberta energy official Christopher Holly.
''So one of the things that's beginning to happen,'' Holly said, ''is we're beginning to recognize the need to take a look at the entire energy framework . . . to look at the balance between being a supplier and also being an environmental steward.''
The Alberta government controls the rights to this oil and is in charge of environmental protection. This year, the western Canadian province of about 3.5 million has an estimated $7.9 billion surplus.
Demand for fuel in North America will keep oil sands production growing from 1.2 million barrels a day in 2007 to 3.5 million to 4 million barrels a day by 2020, said Alberta Oil Minister Mel Knight. ''I don't see anything on the horizon that would indicate that isn't a target that's doable.''
Oil companies are expanding so fast in Alberta that the three big players — Suncor Energy Inc., Syncrude Canada Ltd. and Albian Sands Energy Inc. — have built their own airstrips to ferry in temporary construction workers. Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and many other companies have investments in the big operators.
Workers from all over Canada, plus miners from South Africa and oil workers from Venezuela, have moved to Fort McMurray. Housing costs are sky high. The boomtown of 65,000 has an additional 27,000 temporary workers living in camper trailers and motels.
Some of the world's biggest trucks — two-story-tall Caterpillar 797Bs that carry 400 tons — haul the black sands through strip mines.
The sands contain a form of crude oil called bitumen that's as thick as peanut butter. To remove the sand and clay to turn the bitumen into heavy crude that can flow to refineries takes a lot of energy.
For that reason, greenhouse-gas emissions from production are three to five times those of conventional oil.
Oil companies are required to restore the land. But oil sands operations use the land for many years, and restoration requires decades.
FORT McMURRAY, ALBERTA: For decades, the United States has vowed to reduce its dependence on imported oil and to find a reliable source to meet the nation's growing needs.
Get the full article here.
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