How To Spell Stupid

[Annie]

Let's see, oil prices will rise then we'll do something about this, yeah, right. Links at site:

FuturePundit: Alberta Oil Sands Production To Fall Short Of Goal

Alberta Oil Sands Production To Fall Short Of Goal
The long term growth in capital infrastructure to extra more oil out of tar sands in Alberta is called into question as large tar sands projects get canceled in response to the oil price decline.

Bob Dunbar, president of Strategy West, a Calgary oil sands consulting firm, says the risk of a no-growth period in the oil sands is high.

"If we have a prolonged financial economic crisis, then I think this industry is coming to a halt, other than startup and completion of projects that are already underway," says Mr. Dunbar, who was one of the oil sands' first regulators three decades ago with the Alberta government.

He sees oil sands production growing to 2-million barrels a day, from the current 1.3-million barrels a day, as projects under construction are completed by 2010-2011.

Then, the pipeline dries up. The industry's goal was to produce about 3.5-million barrels a day by 2015.

How long will the recession last? I wish I knew.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers expects a smaller decline in expected tar sands oil production growth.

Deferred and cancelled oilsands projects could result in 300,000 fewer barrels a day flowing from northeast Alberta by 2017, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) said Friday.

The industry association expects oilsands spending to drop more than 25 per cent, to $16 billion in 2009 from a previous estimate of more than $20 billion. Overall upstream spending - including the East Coast offshore - is expected to fall about 15 per cent to $43 billion from $50 billion in 2008, said Greg Stringham, the group's vice-president of markets and fiscal policy.

If OPEC and Russia manage to make a bigger oil production cutback now then fewer projects will get canceled. But if OPEC can't get it together and the recession is long then we are going to be set up for a bigger surge in oil prices when they finally bounce back.

Jeff Rubin, chief economist at CIBC World Markets, sees an 800,000 barrels per day loss in new Alberta oil sands capacity.

"In the Alberta oil sands alone, we estimate that project cancellations and delays, affecting $100 billion of investment, will shave over 800,000 barrels from daily new capacity, roughly half of earlier projected growth in the next five years. And what is happening there is occurring in Brazil, West Africa and the Middle East itself."

I look on the bright side: oil not burned in the next few years due to project cancellations and delays is oil we'll have after world oil production goes into sharp permanent decline.

By Randall Parker at 2008 December 14 01:33 PM

 

[garyd]

And now you know why the price of oil went up slightly.

 

[dilloduck]

I get it now--a depresssion converves energy and helps keep the world clean at the same time. And I doubted Obama's ability to pull it off. I feel bad now.

 

[garyd]

As a matter of fact it actually does, you don't drive as much when you are unemployed these days as you used to. Not as long as you can get computer access.

 

[alan1]

I get it now--a depresssion converves energy and helps keep the world clean at the same time. And I doubted Obama's ability to pull it off. I feel bad now.

If we had a depression every year just think of all the positive environmental impact.

 

[garyd]

If you don't count people chopping down trees to avoid having to pay there heating bills...