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| Great White North |
| Chevron expands Alberta Oil-Sands land buys - will spend billions |
| 2006-03-03 |
| Posted by:Frank G |
| #11 The real war on terror. |
| Posted by: gromgoru 2006-03-03 19:41 |
| #10 P.S. : Mexico? We could take it and Venezuela by force if need be. Hardass? yes. Realistic. F*&k yeah. They need to know it |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-03-03 19:36 |
| #9 Glenmore - good responses, why would you be banned? I disagree with a few, as follows: the regional gas formulations at seasonal changes cause periodic shortages of refinery capacity (by air-basin in the US) clearly for good reason - cleaner air. California, my state, must be forced by Feds (FHWA Highway funds?) to ease enviro-suit stops on refinery capacity. We need to share the pain. I would even agree to off-shore oil-drilling if adequate safety/insurance could be made. (i.e.: negligent spill: turn over all assets) |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-03-03 19:34 |
| #8 A couple of points. 1. Only governments can carry very large financial risks. This is why governments are the insurers of last resort for banks. Goverments can and should underwrite the risks of large non-conventional oil developments by contracting to buy a fixed amount for a fixed price over the lifetime of the project. 2. There is far more oil in unconventional sources than in the Middle East. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-03-03 19:23 |
| #7 1) Nobody would listen to me if I did 'lobby' Chevron for anything. 2) An oil import fee might keep prices high, but it would be wrong. Let the market find the right price. 3) War, or threat of war, in Iran, or Nigeria, or Saudi Arabia .... any or all of these will decrease the supply and increase the cost, or increase the risk premium and increase the cost. All are bad for world (not just US) economies in the short and medium term. Peace is better. 4) Opening ANWR won't help much, may not help at all (may not be any oil there - we haven't drilled, so we don't know), and it will eventually be opened and explored, once we get desperate enough. 5) We have not built refineries in a long time, but we have built refinery capacity, by enlarging existing plants, and improving their efficiency. Building NEW refineries in the US is just about impossible environmentally; as a hypocritical environmentally sensitive nation we would rather emit two units of pollution in some foreign country and import the refined product than emit one unit of pollution here. American refineries are cleaner and safer than ever, and cleaner and safer than pretty much anywhere else in the world, but they still stink and can blow up. 6) The Mid-East isn't the only place which poses a threat to us through high oil revenues; we can't really crack down on Mexican immigration lest Mexico cut off our imports and crush our economy; we can't retaliate against idiot Chavez in Venezuela - same reason. Bush has to 'hold hands' with Saudi leaders and engage in diplomatic pressure rather than nuke Mecca when oil funds flow to terrorists. We're addicts, and will remain so for a while - there is no replacement to fossil fuel in sight. 7) And I'm not banned (yet)! Would have been at some open-minded liberal web sites. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-03-03 18:28 |
| #6 war with Iran will do that without a fee. Open ANWR, build refineries, choke the ME |
| Posted by: Frank G 2006-03-03 18:10 |
| #5 Glenmore, thanks for finding oil. Get Chevron to lobby for an oil import fee to keep the price above $50/bbl. |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-03-03 18:01 |
| #4 I don't know anything about this particular accumulation of tar sand, but in a general sense the tar sand system is pretty well understood, so I'd be surprised if the tar was not under the ground there. The challenge is mostly economic - there is a lot of oil already being produced from the Alberta tar sands, but it is being strip mined, and the tar extracted. I believe this project is intended to develop it with a combination of underground mining and drilling. This costs a lot more, and requires higher sustained oil prices in order to make economic sense. (But it is more environment-friendly, and it could work for more deeply buried reservoirs.) And, it costs a huge amount of money up front. And, it requires the technology to work as planned. Keep that in mind next time you fill up your tank - Chevron is betting over a billion dollars prices stay high, so they can continue to supply the consumer and make money. (Full disclosure - I work for them, elsewhere, as a geologist, and NOT in PR (shields self from barrage of rocks and rotten vegetables.)) |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2006-03-03 17:48 |
| #3 When I lived in Canada 25 years ago, you could homestead on the Peace River. The government would give you 64 acres of land as long as you cleared it. I seriously thought about it. Of course, no one at that time understood the oil sands under the land were worth anything. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-03-03 17:01 |
| #2 The process of melting the frozen bitumen with hot steam essentiall cleans the sand and it is then returned to the ground with the main byproduct steam. These extensive sands provide a continental source of oil without damaging the environment, and sounds like a great investment to me. They should proceed warp speed as we may not have years. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2006-03-03 16:07 |
| #1 the bought relatively cheap ($50M or so) they will attempt to sell a portion of the development rights if it works out well, they can reduce their own expenditures to the hundreds of millions and still retain 30% or more of the eventual output full disclore: I own stock in Chevron |
| Posted by: mhw 2006-03-03 11:44 |