18 May 2005

The Alberta Oil Sands Paradigm

There are over a trillion barrels of oil in the great Alberta oil sands of
Canada. Of this about 150-175 billion barrels are recoverable by current
processing techniques and geographical location with a like number possible
with future surveys. The world uses 80-85 million barrels of oil a day or 30
billion barrels a year. Projecting linear traditional world GDP growth the
world will be consuming 115-120 million barrels a day by the year 2020 or
40-45 billion barrels yearly.

In 2010 after massive further investment daily production from the Alberta
field will increase to 2 million barrels daily or only about 2.3 percent of
the world¹s daily oil needs.

While there is enough oil in the world to last another fifty years, the oil
sands of Alberta characterizes the problem with the world¹s oil ­ much of it
is non-recoverable and there are limits to its rate of extraction. When the
world¹s growing daily demand is not met because of the growing constraints
of the rate of extraction, the cost of oil will soar.

 G. Lammert