Oil Sands Play

[mlk_man]

I remember we once had a discussion about oil sands in Canada but I couldn't find the thread. I've stumbled across a small compay that is seen as becoming a major player. Most companies are drilling in Alberta but this company is just across the border in Saskatchewan and has one of the largest leases of territory. Which I had known about it last year.

CWPC.OB

Here's some background info: http://www.safehaven.com/article-3584.htm

[Show-me]

Yep, also Suncor (SU), Imperial Oil (IMO), and Canadian Oil Sands Trust is a pure play (COSWF.OB). IMO is really high now but shareholders are voting on a 1:5 split. I voted YES! SU has a pipe line to Colorado and refine their own oil. SU claims they can produce oil for $15 per barrel. :nuts: Tar sand are the next practical oil play IMHO. Canada and Venezuela are each suppose to have as much reserves as Saudi Arabia if you count oil sands. Also they are building infrastructure and buying strip mining equipment like crazy. Check out their websites for jobs. They are in a hiring frenzy. We have as much oil reserves in oil shale, but it is very very expensive to extract.

My bet is Canada is a stable county and we will be buying all we can from them once they are at full capacity. When are we going to invade them?:nuts:

[Show-me]

Syncrude is a private company owned by IMO, COSWF, MUR, and some others. Good stuff MilkMan!

[mlk_man]

How many people knew about this:

http://www.dailywealth.com/images/charts/2006/apr/20060414-chart_a_LG.gif

Some of you may remember oil shale drilling during the 70's. Looks like it is back and could be a great play if you can find out what companies are involved. This is quote from a source that I received:

" This past January, the government proceeded with the next step in the process. Three companies were each given 160 acres of the government's oil-rich land.

The company with the cheapest, most environmentally sound drilling method will be granted full access to the government's oil mother lode. Combine all this with stubbornly high oil prices, and a new American oil shale boom may be on. "

Here is more info on oil shales in the US:

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/08/09/news/regional/03e14b4eb94bfd7f8725705700826a2b.txt

I'd keep an eye on this company: http://www.oil-techinc.com/company.html

Although they are privately owned now, that could change or the company sold.

Happy returns,

M_M

[mlk_man]

The Bureau of Land Management recently received ten applications (by eight companies) for a pilot program to
develop Colorado's shale reserves. The program allows the companies access to public lands for the purpose of testing
shale-extraction technologies. You see below an interesting mix of large, publicly traded oil giants and small,
privately held innovators.
Natural Soda, Inc. of Rifle, Colorado.
EGL Resources Inc. of Midland, Texas.
Salt Lake City-based Kennecott Exploration Company.
Independent Energy Partners of Denver, Colorado
Denver-based Phoenix Wyoming, Inc.
Chevron Shale Oil Company.
Exxon Mobil Corporation.
Shell Frontier Oil and Gas Inc

[mlk_man]

After doing some more research, I'd say the "Big 3" are the ones most likely to come up with the technique. Most likely Shell............

[Oldcoin]

After doing some more research, I'd say the "Big 3" are the ones most likely to come up with the technique. Most likely Shell............

Any special equipment needed to process the oil? Who makes that?

[Show-me]

It has to be cooked out at very high temps in a no oxygen atmosphere (nitrogen) to prevent burning the oil. Tailing are another problem. I believe about 30% of the oil is left in the shale tailings.

Military was one of the first developers during WWII.

[Oldcoin]

Looks like shell has a head start on a "In-situ" process. Did some checking and it appears to be expensive but productive. It also appears to be way off in the future.

I would like to find out who makes the Downhole Heaters used and who makes the cables needed to operate at those extreme conditions. Might be a play in those areas......but who knows. Maybe GE does that.

[The_Technician]

Bill O'Reilly is really grilling over Exxon for paying their CEO $900 million and then given him a $400 million retirement package....;) :p

I agree with Bill, its gouging money from our pockets and who in the He!! deserves such pay or retirement.....captialism has gone amuck......more like abuse of the disadvantaged/dependent.....:embarrest:

[mlk_man]

More info on oil shale:

Over the past 125 years, oil shale has been the secret oil source for a handful of nations. Specifically, those fortunate enough to have it…

China’s been using oil shale since 1929. Today, China is the largest producer of oil from oil shale. It plans to double the daily rate of production soon.
Estonia is an oil shale dependent economy. Over 90% of the country’s electricity is fueled by shale oil. In fact, electricity run on oil shale is a chief export. In 1991, Brazil built the world’s largest oil shale facility. They’ve already produced more than 1.5 MILLION tons of oil to make high quality transportation fuels.

Jordan, Morocco, and Australia have recently announced plans to utilize their oil shale resources. All 3 governments are currently working to build oil shale facilities.

I've been getting some newsletters lately that talk about oil shale and from what I've been reading, of course they want you to pay for the actual name of the company, I believe that if you are going to own an oil company for the long term, Shell(RDS-B) is the one to own.

I'd also be looking for natural gas companies in the Colorado, Utah area because they'll need a lot of it to produce the oil. They've also been talking about a "secret energy" source they'll be strongly utilized. What could this be? Uranium? What about Liguid Nitrogen? They have to freeze the area around the shale right?

I'll keep looking into it.

Happy returns,

M_M

[mlk_man]

FYI

http://www.fe.doe.gov/programs/reserves/publications/Pubs-NPR/40010-373.pdf

might have to look into buying some land in the surrounding areas. Housing, schools, waste management, malls.......................

How about a town. Shaleville? :D

[FundSurfer]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060608/lf_nm/oilsands_dc

[Oldcoin]

Colorado, Utah Rival OPEC Reserves, Lure Chevron, Exxon, Shell

By Joe Carroll

May 29 (Bloomberg) -- Colorado and Utah have as much oil as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined.

That's not science fiction. Trapped in limestone up to 200 feet (61 meters) thick in the two Rocky Mountain states is enough so-called shale oil to rival OPEC and supply the U.S. for a century.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible.

``The breakthrough is that now the oil companies have a way of getting this oil out of the ground without the massive energy and manpower costs that killed these projects in the 1970s,'' said Pete Stark, an analyst at IHS Inc., an Englewood, Colorado, research firm. ``All the shale rocks in the world are going to be revisited now to see how much oil they contain.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aoZ7q9LhDrVs&refer=home

[FundSurfer]

Hmmm... May have to look at oil sands again.

WASHINGTON - A vast new energy supply in hard-to-tap older oil fields may be generated simply by feeding fertilizer to some deep-dwelling, gas-making microbes, new research suggests.

Canadian and English researchers were able to convert oil into usable methane in small glass tubes during two years of lab research, instead of a process that takes tens of thousands of years underground. The next step is to do it in real oil fields.
The new method takes advantage of the natural process that occurs when microbes slowly degrade oil into methane, the chief ingredient in natural gas.
The researchers report their experiment in a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
"You're talking a very substantial amount of energy," said study co-author Steve Larter, a University of Calgary petroleum geologist. "It's potentially a game changer if it can be demonstrated."
Proving that it could work on a large scale, economically and in real world conditions is the big unknown, the researchers concede.
Larter said it was hard to come up with just how much energy they could produce, but speculated it could be near the equivalent of the world's conventional oil reserves.
The key is the microbes, which have existed underground for hundreds of millions of years. They ferment the oil and expel natural gas without requiring oxygen.
Others have tried the approach used by Larter and his colleagues before, seeking to speed up the process by injecting more bacteria. But Larter says the key is giving the microbes their own version of vitamins.
"You'd basically feed them Miracle-Gro or fertilizer to accelerate their growth rate," he said.
The new product would be natural gas, not oil, a cleaner-burning fuel that contributes far less to global warming. Such an approach would be most promising in places with heavy oil, such as Alberta, Venezuela and Utah, other experts said.
The concept makes sense and is already being applied to getting methane from coal beds, said U.S. Geological Survey research geochemist Michael Lewan, who was not part of the Larter study team.
___

[Bullitt]

Article is somewhat dated, but gives promise to Oil Sands in domestic USA. Along the lines of OldCoin's post almost a year ago.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/10/30/magazines/fortune/Oil_from_stone.fortune/index.htm