[Graeme]

1.8 trillion barrels of oil in Alberta says ERCB report

There could be a lot more oil in Alberta's oil sands than anyone knew.

A new report has resulted in a hike in the province's bitumen estimate.

The Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB) says the increase is based largely on a re-evaluation of the largely untapped Athabasca Grosmont deposit.

A new study, the first undertaken in 20 years, has bumped the estimate by 28 per cent.

Darin Barter with the ERCB says that means production will likely continue for many years to come.

"In Alberta, we have about 1.8 trillion barrels of oil, and that's oil that's really in place up in the oil sands. It's not necessarily recoverable today, but as technology moves forward we'll be able to get at that oil much easier," said Barter.

ctv

[Plantagenet]

The GOM oil spill may push forward the development of the oil sands, as there is no risk of a catastrophic underwater oil spill from the Alberta oil sands, and the kind of environmental devastation that development in Alberta will inevitably produce doesn't look so bad compared to the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico.

[Graeme]

Yes, development of Canadian oil sands will certainly cause local environmental desctruction but they will be needed by USA as it enters the end of the age of oil. Their exploitation indicates that USA is scaping the bottom of the oil barrel. How many more Deepwater Horizon oil spills will it take before America realizes that the environmental damage caused by oil use is just too great? The impetus to transition from oil to renewables is now more urgent than ever before.

Pity the earlier discussion between "MattS" and Eastbay was deleted.

[Maddog78]

Pity the earlier discussion between "MattS" and Eastbay was deleted.

Yeah.
btw, I haven't seen shortonsense around lately either.
Hmmmmm.

[eastbay]

Well we had no choice about the deletion. I hope everyone understands we can't have banned members freely posting again under pseudonyms.

The summary of the discussion was roughly as follows: Since some expert says there are 1.8 tbbls URR in the Alberta tar sands we should take it as a likely fact. One po.com member pointed out that it takes two BBls to get one therefore it really has only about 600 bbbls in useful URR. My contention was that since we regularly get optimistic reports from here and there and everywhere else we should be very suspicious and render such wildly optimistic expert reports as fantasy until they're proven otherwise.