The oil sands industry has been walking a difficult balance between the high cost of production and its value on the open market. In 2014, the cost to produce oil sands crude was more than $60 per barrel (expressed …
The math does not add up for the tar sands. The high cost and environmental liabilities of tar-sands oil together with opposition to pipelines has resulted in massive divestment from the tar sands ...
The oil sands industry has been walking a difficult balance between the high cost of production and its value on the open market. In 2014, the cost to produce oil sands crude was more than $60 per barrel (expressed in WTI terms), but improvements and efficiencies have brought costs down to $46 to $53 per barrel, according to one estimate, and ...
Sample by My Essay Writer T he Alberta tar sands, also known as the Athabasca oil sands, are some of the largest deposits of oils sands presently known in the western hemisphere. As such, these tar sands are sought out by oil companies in massive numbers in order to fulfill the needs of the oil market. However, the problem that emerges as a result of …
One company involved in the Alberta tar sands operation, Syncrude, spends more than $100 million annually on land restoration efforts. Some of the lands which have been reclaimed have been fully certified by the …
In their 11th annual review of oil sands supply costs, the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) pegs breakeven costs at $43.31/bbl for SAGD projects (steam-assisted gravity drainage) and $70.08/bbl for a …
However, despite the extraction costs of oil from tar sands, in today's current market, with the purchase price of oil at $80 per barrel, the production of petroleum from tar sands is still an extremely profitable affair for companies mining Canadian tar sands. Yet, we are only addressing the question of economics.
The problem with tar sands comes down to the hefty cost of emissions needed to produce oil products. It releases more Co2 emissions into the air to make oil in this fashion compared to its sister energy, coal. Producing one barrel of tar sands, as opposed to other resources, is about a 15% increase in Co2 emissions.
The Alberta tar sands hold much of Canada's oil wealth: the region contains an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen oil. The size of this reserve makes it the third largest oil deposit in the world after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Yet despite this, the cost of extraction now outweighs the profit made per barrel.
In their 11th annual review of oil sands supply costs, the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) pegs breakeven costs at $43.31/bbl for SAGD projects (steam-assisted gravity drainage) and $70.08/bbl for a stand-alone mine. The figures exclude blending and transportation costs but include capital expenditures. The higher mining costs stem from …
Both methods are extremely costly because of their extensive and complicated processes of extraction, transportation and refinement, making tar sands the most expensive source of oil. 4 In addition to this, there are immense environmental costs.
(For evidence, note the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Kalamazoo River, Michigan, a disaster that cost Enbridge more than a billion dollars in cleanup fees and took six years to settle in court ...
Once viewed by those in the fossil fuel industry as one of their brightest hopes for more big profits, tar sands extraction is looking riskier and costlier. Opposition to Keystone XL and other tar sands-related projects has cost the industry dearly. Photo credit: Shutterstock As Republicans in the U.S. continue to look for ways to […]
But, along with high environmen-tal costs, tar sands developments mean direct and indirect social costs. Who profits? Companies from all over the world from the United States and Abu Dabai to South Korea, Norway, the Netherlands, France, Ger-many, the UK and China - own huge chunks of Albertas tar sands real estate.1 ...
For every gallon of gasoline produced by tar sands, about 5.9 gallons of freshwater are consumed during the extraction, upgrading, and refining process. That's roughly three times as much as used for conventional …
opportunity costs of tar sands development Tar sands production is currently around 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd). Estimates of future production range from 2.5 to 6.2 million bpd by 2020. The Canadian Energy Research Institute has estimated that $379bn of investment is required by 2025 to bring production to around 4 million bpd.2 This is ...
Enbridge has already spent close to $1 billion on clean-up and related costs. ... Although Enbridge initially denied its line was carrying bitumen from the Alberta tar sands, it became quickly ...
Before the tar sands industry became the motor of economic growth within the Dominion of Canada in the late 1990s, the energy sector (nuclear, coal, conventional petroleum and methane, and hydro) had a capital-labor ratio of $200,000 per job. Presently the capital-labor ratio in the tar sands is $1.4 million per job.
Imperial Oil can charge much less for its barrels than the other two companies. The reason for this lies in the fact, that bitumen with a price of only $60.57 represents 68% of Imperial Oil's ...
The break-even price of tar sands oil is around $100 per barrel if transported by rail, according to Anthony Swift, a staff attorney at NRDC (which publishes Earthwire). Tar sands oil sells for $75...
Tar Sands Studies Ignore Significant Environmental Costs. By Abby Schultz. May 26, 2009. A new report from the Council on Foreign Relations touts the Canadian tar sands as an important future ...
U.S. Oil Sands has drilled roughly 180 test wells at the PR Spring Special Tar Sands Area in the Uinta Basin. The PR Spring Tar Sands is located on state-owned land near Arches National Park. U.S. Oil Sands Inc is awaiting approval from Utah state environmental regulators to begin producing oil, which they hope to do by 2013.
The extraction and refining processes related to tar sands cost companies mining tar sands in Canada approximately $27 per barrel. However, despite the extraction costs of oil from tar sands, in today's current market, with the purchase price of oil at $80 per barrel, the production of petroleum from tar sands is still an extremely profitable ...
And despite the extreme environmental costs, and the growing need for countries to shift away from fossil fuels, the mines continue to expand, digging up nearly 500 Olympic swimming pools-worth of earth every day. ... Eight active tar sands mines now form a 40-mile chain along the Athabasca River, their giant shovels gobbling up the earth like ...
Mr. Laut said oil sands producers were making three times the profit in 2004 when a barrel of oil cost about $40 (U.S.) than it did when the price hit close to $100 in 2013. He said rising costs from suppliers, and not world oil prices, were the reason that CNRL and others could no longer produce the profits it once did.
By one count, 13 tar sands projects that were on the books a year ago have been delayed or canceled. Between 2008 and 2010, developers were expected to spend C$128 billion on tar sands projects.
In their 11th annual review of oil sands supply costs, the Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) pegs breakeven costs at $43.31/bbl for SAGD projects (steam-assisted gravity drainage) and $70.08/bbl for a …
The State Department has confirmed that the Keystone XL pipeline's paltry employment benefits pale in comparison with its climate costs. Contrary to claims that the tar sands industry's pet ...
The production of petroleum from the tar sands in Alberta has become one of the most pressing environmental and human rights issues in Canada. The tar sands (also known as oil sands) is the largest industrial project on earth, yet few …