oil sands

Approximately 2000 billion barrels of conventional oil may ultimately be extracted. We have soon consumed half of it. Global oil production may peak around 2010. It is claimed that non-conventional oil production, including Canadian oil sands production, may bridge the coming gap between the world’s oil demand and global oil supply. In 2003 the oil sands reserves were included in Canada’s estimated proven reserves, thus increasing from 5 to 180 billion barrels. The objective of this report is to investigate and analyse the production of heavy oil/bitumen from Canada’s oil sands deposits and its future impact on global oil supply.

The report shows that the Canadian oil sands industry’s dependence on natural gas is unsustainable. Extensive use of bitumen for fuel and upgrading seems to be incompatible with Canada’s obligations under the Kyoto treaty.

The Canadian oil sands industry should be viewed as two separate forms of oil production, in situ production (similar to conventional oil production) and mining. The long-term future of the Canadian oil sands industry is the in situ production, although great uncertainty is associated with its potential.
If a massive effort is made to put the whole oil sands mining area into production, a plateau production and a following decline are expected for the oil sands mining industry. The declining oil sands mining production may cause a peak production for the Canadian oil sands industry as a whole, since it is uncertain if the in situ production may compensate for the declining mining activities.

The future Canadian oil sands production cannot even compensate for the combined declining conventional oil production in Canada and the North Sea. The most optimistic scenario will not manage to compensate the decline by 2030. Canada’s oil sands resources cannot prevent a global peak oil scenario.

Published in: Uppsala University,
Available from: Global Energy Systems

The report Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management, by Robert L. Hirsch et al., concludes that Peak Oil is going to happen and that worldwide large-scale mitigation efforts are necessary to avoid its possible devastating effects for the world economy. These efforts include accelerated production, referred to as crash programme production, from Canada's oil sands. The objective of this article is to investigate and analyse what production levels that might be reasonable to expect from a crash programme for the Canadian oil sands industry, within the time frame 2006–2018 and 2006–2050. The implementation of a crash programme for the Canadian oil sands industry is associated with serious difficulties. There is not a large enough supply of natural gas to support a future Canadian oil sands industry with today's dependence on natural gas. It is possible to use bitumen as fuel and for upgrading, although it seems to be incompatible with Canada's obligations under the Kyoto treaty. For practical long-term high production, Canada must construct nuclear facilities to generate energy for the in situ projects. Even in a very optimistic scenario Canada's oil sands will not prevent Peak Oil. A short-term crash programme from the Canadian oil sands industry achieves about 3.6 Mb/d by 2018. A long-term crash programme results in a production of approximately 5 Mb/d by 2030.

Published in: Energy Policy, Volume 35, Issue 3, March 2007, Pages 1931-1947
Available from: ScienceDirect
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