Canadian Oil Sands Versus Colorado’s Oil Shale
The Canadian oil sands are one of the richest deposits of oil product in the world, if not the largest. While Saudi Arabia is a listed as having the largest amount of crude oil, it is a belief that their resources may be more limited than they are willing to share. Canada, just north of the border, looks to be one of the best ways for the United States to break its dependency on Middle East oil. Yet, the question is, what about Colorado’s reserves?
Colorado has a rich deposit of oil shale, a product much different from that found under Alberta’s land. Some may not know about the oil shale found in Colorado, but it is one of the best locations in the world for rich oil deposits. You may be asking then, “Why is the US so determined to buy foreign oil when there is such a large deposit located in Colorado?” The reason is simple. Oil shale is not the best product for oil production, because of the difficulty in production and refining to the level that is required.
By comparison, oil shale production in the world is limited to just 30,000 barrels each day. The oil sands located in Alberta, Canada, on the other hand, produce enough oil to provide Canadians with 40 percent of the total crude oil production they need. In the next 10 years, it is an estimate that Canadian oil sands will produce 4 billion barrels of oil a year, much larger than the amount the Colorado oil shale will produce.
That does not mean you should not invest in the Colorado oil shale development. Most investors believe the technology to get the Colorado oil shale development up to a more usable level is still years away. Yet, the companies that you can buy into to get a piece of this investment are forming and they are looking for those ground floor investors that stand to make the largest investment of all.
You can learn much more about the Colorado oil shale. It is located in Green River formation in the heart of Colorado. Additionally, there are similar deposits of oil shale located in rural Utah and Wyoming, both of which are additional sources of investment potential. It is an estimate that there are two trillion barrels of oil found in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah combined, all in the form of oil shale. Still, investors are turning their investment dollar to the Canadian oil sands where potential is currently in play. Oil production is an ideal investment tool in either Colorado or in Canada. The goal you have is to determine what type of investment you want to get behind.
Canadian Oil Sands Reserve Estimates: How Much Is There Really?
You have likely heard of the large size of the Canadian oil fields. Records indicate that this oil field is so large that it may be larger than anything in the world, including the large deposits located in the Middle East. Through investigation and research, scientists working for various organizations are able to give us an estimate on the oil reserves located in this area. It can be helpful to know what the actual reserves amounts are if you are an investor.
In 2007, the Alberta government put in place the Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) and gave them the job of determining more information on the oil available. They estimated that in 2007, there were about 173 billion barrels of crude bitumen that are recoverable from the three Alberta oil sands regions. That is, this is the economically recoverable product (due to the high costs of extraction of deep levels of the bitumen.) This was taken into consideration based on the US $62 per barrel cost in 2006, up to the likely rise of US $69 per barrel by 2016. It was complete based on the same technology in play today.
This study showed that only about 10 percent of the amount of bitumen located in the Alberta oil sands could be in use. The government determined that the Athabasca oil sands located here contained about 35 billion barrels of surface mining product. There were an additional 98 billion barrels of bitumen recovered using in-situ methods. Although there was some doubt in the information provided in this area, it is widely believed by the international oil industry that the figures are accurate (though many believe there is much more available for mining.) The figures of the reserves placed the Canadian oil sands region in Alberta to be the second largest in the world, right behind Saudi Arabia.
There is a lot of debate and concern over the estimates recovery rate in the Alberta oil sands. The estimates given were assuming a recovery rate of about 20 percent of bitumen in place. This means that only 20 percent of the amount of bitumen located in the Alberta region can be in use. Yet, this is not the recovery rate that is believed to be accessible by the producers themselves. The oil producers believe that about 60 percent of the bitumen located here are removable with very little effort through the steam assisted gravity drainage method (SAGD) which would drastically change the picture.
Since 1967, only about three percent of the bitumen has been extracted from the region. When considering that the producers are able to increase the number of barrels per day they are extracting to 3 million per day by the year 2015, this means that the Athabasca oil sands reserves would provide crude oil, at that rate, for the next 170 years.