“Canada has great oil reserves and the United States obviously provides a tremendous market”, says U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins. “It bodes well for energy security as far as the United States is concerned because Canada is a close neighbor and strong ally.”
Since Canada’s great oilsands experiment began almost 40 years ago, more than 4.6 billion barrels of crude have been produced - a large number, but only enough to feed today’s global appetite for 55 days.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates by 2025, oil consumption will jump to almost 120 million barrels per day from 85 million today. If true, the world will burn a billion barrels of oil every nine days. Canada’s oilsands contain 175 billion barrels of recoverable reserves that could last for almost 480 years at current production levels. There’s little chance of that happening.
Output of Canadian oilsands, now topping one 1 million barrels a day, is expected to within a decade. One forecast pegs daily output at 11 million barrels by 2035. Today, almost 35 new projects are on the drawing board in the Fort McMurray area, with $130 billion in spending planned by the end of the decade.
By 2015, some experts predict Canada will produce more crude than all but one OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) country kingpin Saudi Arabia - and become the world’s third biggest producer.
CNRL Resources just announced in November of 2005 it will increase construction spending from $10 billion to $30 billion, to a production level of 800,000 barrels per day, almost today’s current total production of all the tar sands combined. Shell has announced very recently to take production to 600,000 barrels per day. Suncor is to increase spending to increase from 260,000 bpd to 500,000 bpd. plus a $6 billion upgrader refinery. Plus, many other new projects coming on stream.