[Keith_McClary]

Downstream impact of B.C. dam proposal on fish, concern Alberta

ST. JOHN, B.C. -- The province of Alberta is concerned that a multibillion-dollar hydroelectric dam proposed in northeastern British Columbia could increase mercury levels in fish and escalate the risk of floods or drought along the Peace River that flows through its province.
Alberta's Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, which manages lands, forests, fish and wildlife in the province, has filed a 23-page submission setting out its concerns to the panel reviewing the massive project.

[ROCKMAN]

Another deal in the works. As I understand this is to expand capacity of the existing system and not for a new pipeline. Time will tell:

Trans Mountain Pipeline ULC owned by Kinder Morgan Energy Partners Monday filed a Facilities Application with its regulator, the National Energy Board (NEB), for authorization to build and operate the necessary facilities for the company’s proposed Trans Mountain expansion project. The application addresses all issues previously identified by the NEB, including environmental, socio-economic, Aboriginal engagement, landowner and public consultation, marine risk assessments and engineering components of the proposed expansion project. With this filing, the proposed project will undergo a comprehensive public regulatory review.

“For the past 18 months we have engaged extensively with landowners, Aboriginal groups, communities and stakeholders along the entire proposed expansion route, and marine communities, and have carefully considered the input received during this period of study and dialogue,” said president of Kinder Morgan Canada. “Our engagement efforts will continue beyond this filing leading up to the NEB hearing as we consider further input that is critical to our planning on this project.” The next step in this process will be for the NEB to establish a hearing schedule that corresponds to the federal government’s legislated 15-month review and decision timeframe. If approvals are received, the expansion is expected to be operational in late 2017.

In spring 2012, Kinder Morgan Canada announced it would move forward with its proposed plans to expand the existing Trans Mountain pipeline system between Edmonton, Alberta, and Burnaby, British Columbia, following strong commitments received from its customers. Thirteen companies in the Canadian producing and oil marketing business signed firm contracts bringing the total volume of committed shippers to approximately 708,000 barrels per day (bpd). Kinder Morgan Canada received approval of the commercial terms related to the expansion from the NEB in May of this year. The proposed $5.4 billion project will increase capacity on Trans Mountain from approximately 300,000 bpd to 890,000 bpd.

[yellowcanoe]

Another deal in the works. As I understand this is to expand capacity of the existing system and not for a new pipeline. Time will tell:

Kinder Morgan need to twin the existing Trans Mountain pipeline to achieve the higher capacity. In fact, they've already laid a new 36" pipeline from Hinton, Alberta to Rearguard, British Columbia (the west side of Mount Robson Provincial Park). The order-in-council that authorized construction of the first pipeline in 1951 also authorized a future expansion within the two parks that the Yellowhead Pass goes through (Jasper National Park in Alberta and Mount Robson Provincial Park in British Columbia).

[cantonn11]

I found an abstract from SPE that covers using SAGD in oil sands resources without Caprock. Does anyone know how much of the oil sands resource in Canada (in billions of barrels) either lacks or does not have a caprock needed for conventional in situ extraction methods?

Link to Abstract:
On SAGD in Oil Sands Reservoirs with No Caprock

[ROCKMAN]

cantonn – I don’t know the answer and I suspect no one has a complete answer. Companies drill wells in an area they control and discover the conditions they have to deal with. They can try to extrapolate to other areas but that’s typically just an educated guess IMHO. And the answer won’t be black or white but a matter of degrees. For instance “caprock” might be the term they use in this report but it has a different meaning depending on the region. But in the report they use a more appropriate term IMHO: seal. For a hydrocarbon to be trapped in a reservoir it needs to be contained buy a sealing formation above it: gravity causes hydrocarbons with a lower density than water to “float” upwards until it meets a seal that blocks it. The oil sands are a bit difference in that their low mobility prevents them floating up to the surface. Change that mobility by heating it and it will move either upwards, laterally and even downwards if there are permeable rocks below it. There was an event not long ago where mobilized oil sands production migrated up to the surface. Obvious that would cause a loss of economic value.

So depending upon just how much of the oil sands reserves are in an advantageous position for SAGD development is a very valid question. But it may be a long time, if ever, before someone makes an effort to quantify the answer for the entire plays. Which is why many folks avoid putting a “producible” reserve number out there and prefer to go with “resource” numbers which doesn’t necessarily imply that volume would ever be produced.

[rockdoc123]

theoretically this is possible if the injection well is far enough below the top of a very thick oil sand with very high viscosity. The reason for this is that the steam heating is not something that goes forever....the distance that the heat can be transmitted is a function of heat loss which I suppose would be a partial derivative of distance (not sure what the function would be but I'm sure it has been published somewhere). So if the formation is thick enough the uppermost part of the oil sand would function as a sort of seal given it's viscosity remains unchanged.

I'm trying to think of a situation where this exists (i.e. too deep to be mineable but with no top seal present) and am at a loss.

[cantonn11]

Does anyone have access to the data that show the estimates of the oil sands resources without caprock seals?

[ROCKMAN]

cantonn – The only ones with such an estimate would be each company but only with respect to their leases. And if you’re waiting for any of those public companies to voluntarily release data that might down grade the value of their reserves you should anticipate a very long wait. Here’s the story about that latest leak. As you read this consider that Canadian Natural, the largest Canadian independent oil producer, probably had no expectation of developing a surface leak due to insufficient caprock. And they were obviously wrong. Otherwise why would they risk $millions just drilling the wells let alone the environmental clean-up costs.

CALGARY, Alberta, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Canadian Natural Resources Ltd has been ordered to drain a lake on the site of its northern Alberta oil sands project so that contamination on the lake's bottom, from a leak that has been spilling tar-like bitumen for months, can be cleaned up. Canadian Natural reported in late June that bitumen was coming to the surface on the bottom of the lake.

The leak, one of four on the sprawling project site, sprung up from an oil sands reserve produced by a process that melts bitumen with high-pressure steam so that it can be moved and processed. The leak has yet to be stopped.

"The Alberta government should, at a minimum, put a hold on approving new underground tar sands operations until we understand how these leaks are happening and if other sites could run into similar problems," Mike Hudema, a climate and energy campaigner at Greenpeace Canada, said in a statement.

(So the Alberta govt might stop all SAGD projects until there’s a complete audit of all the leases to determine if there’s sufficient caprock everywhere? That might also be a very long wait for that to happen.)

"Canadian Natural will continue to make available any necessary resources for investigation, clean-up and towards putting safeguards in place to ensure events such as these do not happen again," the company said.

(And notice the largest Canadian independent oil producer said nothing about aborting any of its other SAGD projects)

[Subjectivist]

I keep seeing references to rising costs for Alberta oil sands production, like the example below.

"So you have a business where revenue projections have doubled, one of your key costs has been cut in half and back in 2006 the forecast for oilsands production was 4 million barrels a day - by 2015/2020. But now that production forecast is in the three million barrels a day," Leach said. This, he adds, messes with the laws of economics.

"You would think, he said, that higher prices and lower costs would mean more production in any business. But we have seen exactly the opposite in Alberta," Leach said.

Many likely aren't aware that as prices have increased fairly steadily since 2006, production numbers have fallen below expectations.

Why is that?

Much of it has to do with labour costs. Since 2000, hourly wages in Canada have grown at an average annual rate of 2.9 per cent. For the same period, in Alberta, wages grew by 4.1 per cent - 1.2 per cent faster than in the rest of the country. When the oilpatch is carved out, those wages have grown by 6.7 per cent since 2000.

If rising labour costs is one variable, another is that of declining productivity.

While some of this is undoubtedly due to infrastructure or facilities-related issues - such as unplanned maintenance or delays in receiving equipment - a big challenge, says Leach, is the propensity to job hop in the Fort McMurray region.

How accurate are these statements? I know production has not grown as fast as expected but have costs really increased to the point of causing the slow down, or are other factors like lack of permits and limited infrastructure the real culprits?

[PrestonSturges]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... story.html

The Koch brothers have been denying that they are the ones driving the GOPs push for the Keystone pipeline, even though they are major players in the pipeline industry.

Well it turns out the Kochs have roughly the third largest leases for ALberta's tar sands, they are the largest foreign leases, and they are only a bit smaller than the largest Canadian leases.

Cenovus Energy (Canada) 1.57 million* (includes rights to an air weapons range)
Athabasca Oil Corp. (Canada) 1.56 million**
Koch (U.S.) 1.12 million to 1.47 million***
Canadian Natural Resources (Canada) 1 million*
Suncor (Canada) 986,000****

Obviously they stand to make hundreds of billion in profits off this deal. Are they willing to stage a coupe for this? Hey, we've been doing this sort of thing on the Mid-East for a century.

[Plantagenet]

the Kochs have roughly the third largest leases for ALberta's tar sands, they are the largest foreign leases, and they are only a bit smaller than the largest Canadian leases.

...Suncor ... 986,000

Check your math. Suncor is a publicly traded corporation----it is not owned by the Kochs.

Also Suncor is a Canadian corporation, not a US corporation.

And finally, the American who actually has a huge stake in Suncor is the liberal Warren Buffet, not the conservative Koch brothers.

Warren Buffett's massive holding in Suncor energy corp

Sorry to blow up your whole premise, but you really should check your facts before posting things that are so obviously and grossly inaccurate.---

[Plantagenet]

Plant: WTF?

If you want to talk about the imaginary Koch ownership of Suncor, an imaginary US corporation in some imaginary Bizarro world, then go ahead.

But in the real world the Koch brothers don't own Suncor, and its a Canadian corporation not a US corporation, and Warren Buffett is the person with the massive stake in Suncor, not the Koch Brothers.


On Bizarro World the Koch brothers own Suncor and its a US Corporation too!

[yellowcanoe]

If you want to talk about the imaginary Koch ownership of Suncor, an imaginary US corporation in some imaginary Bizarro world, then go ahead.

But in the real world the Koch brothers don't own Suncor, and its a Canadian corporation not a US corporation, and Warren Buffett is the person with the massive stake in Suncor, not the Koch Brothers.

The oil sands are the result of the largest natural oil spill in the world and we're just desperate to sell it off to any foreigners willing to buy it!

[rockdoc123]

from an interview end of last month:

TUCKER CARLSON: So, The Washington Post basically reinforcing the precise story line that Harry Reid has been putting out there. Tell us how that works.

JOHN HINDERAKER: Last week The Washington Post ran an article that implied that Koch Industries is the driving force behind the Keystone Pipeline because Koch would benefit from the pipeline financially. The article was based entirely on a report done by the far Left group called the International Forum on Globalization last Fall. I debunked that report on Power Line last October. The reality is that Koch Industries has nothing to do with Keystone. They haven’t lobbied in favor of the Keystone Pipeline, they haven’t lobbied against it or taken a position on whether it should be built. The pipeline won’t run near anywhere near any Koch refinery. In fact, the Keystone Pipeline would damage Koch’s economic interest because it would allow Alberta oil it to be shipped to the refineries in the southern states and divert it away from Koch’s refinery in Minnesota which now gets Alberta oil at a low price because there is a glut. Ironically the IFG report, which is is the sole basis for this The Washington Post article, acknowledged this fact and said that Koch Industries would be damaged to the tune of $120 billion by the construction of the pipeline.

guess you don't need facts when you go after evil corporations

[Plantagenet]

The Obama administration's decision to delay, once again, making a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline is adding impetus in Canada to plans to begin massive oil exports to the EU and Asia

Canada currently exports 97% of its oil production to the USA, but many in Canada now see that they would be better off economically if they were selling their oil into global market by exporting to the EU and Asia, rather then being used as a pawn in the political machinations of the Obama administration.

canada-the-next-oil-superpower

Plans are afoot for six new pipelines capable of carrying over 3 million bbls/day to Canadian tidewater ports where it can be shipped to the EU and Asia, completely bypassing the USA.

[ROCKMAN]

P - In makes for good chatter but I doubt that if the POTUS had approved the permit years ago and the northern leg of Keystone XL were flowing Canadian oil south today (as the southern leg of KXL began doing last January) I'm pretty sure the Canadians would still be trying to expand their customer list for their oil exports.

Nothing personal...just business.

[Plantagenet]

Of course, but as the article indicates, having the Keystone blocked and delayed and blocked and delayed again is providing impetus within Canada to Canadian plans to build new pipelines to tidewater so Canada can export Canadian oil to the EU and Asia.

There was always a risk that delaying the Keystone XL for purely political reasons would anger the Canadians. There has been an advantage to the US in having Canadian oil all going to us. That advantage is about to end.

Down the road, I think we'll see Canada as an oil SUPERPOWER exporting 3+ million barrels/day to the EU and Asia.

[ROCKMAN]

P - All true but I've looked past all the BS and haven't found one factual statement that the lack of the permit has prevented the Canadians from developing, producing or exporting one bbl of oil sands production. New projects are reported almost monthly as well as expansion plans for the entire infrastructure. If I missed it but if someone has seen just one credible statement that the Canadians haven't been able to sell every single bbl of production so far let me know where to find it.