Currently, global oil demand is about 85 million barrels a day. The oil sands produce about 1.2 million barrels a day, or 1.4 per cent of the total. The figure is small, though not insignificant. Of course, oil sands production is rising as tens of billions of dollars flow into new projects. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) has said the oil sands will pump out as much as four million barrels a day by 2020. That's equivalent to a meaningful 4.7 per cent of current daily production.
There are a couple of big problems with the four-million-barrel output figure.
The first is that even as oil sands' production soars, so does global oil demand. Energy agencies and oil companies have predicted a demand figure of about 110 million barrels a day by 2030. It might go higher, depending on the oil slurp-a-thon in China and India. China alone is putting 14,000 new cars on the road every day. If 110 million barrels a day proves accurate, Alberta's share (assuming daily production of four million barrels) falls to 3.6 per cent.
The second is that CAPP's four-million-barrel figure may be ambitious. The new World Energy Outlook will probably pencil in a smaller number. Why? Because the oil sands are probably the world's most expensive oil production. As oil prices rise, so do costs. In the oil sands, natural gas is burned to generate the steam required to heat the bitumen in the reserve, allowing it to be pumped to the surface. Roughly speaking, it takes the equivalent of one barrel of energy to produce three barrels of oil sands oil.
The oil sands' other big problem is environmental. In the surface mining operations, it takes about 10 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil. For the underground recovery operations, the figure is two to one (less water is used underground because it's recycled). Then there is the carbon dioxide output. The industry will get hit with carbon taxes. It's just a question of when.
Globe and Mail
