Quote:
Originally Posted by burn_this_city
Mining isnt Oil, we have neither the investment capital, or the labour to build multiple upgraders and refineries.
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I understand that mining isn't the only supply of oil, but to say that it doesn't have a huge play in the market is ignorant. The jobs in Ft. Mac for people with less than a Grade 12 making $100,000 driving trucks around is evidence enough.
Develop the skilled labour, something the mining industry is missing, increase demand by lowering supply, and the people (even the Americans) who actually invest the money will do it here, becasue they don't care where they make it.
From Syncrude Website:
Quote:
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The process of turning oil sand into Syncrude Sweet Blend crude oil begins with mining the resource. Because the oil sand in Syncrude’s leases is not deeply buried, surface mining is the most viable method of recovery.
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Since Great Canadian Oil Sands (now
Suncor) started operation of its mine in 1967,
bitumen has been extracted on a commercial scale from the Athabasca Oil Sands by surface mining. In the Athabasca sands there are very large amounts of bitumen covered by little overburden, making surface mining the most efficient method of extracting it. The overburden consists of water-laden
muskeg (peat bog) over top of clay and barren sand. The oil sands themselves are typically 40 to 60 metres deep, sitting on top of flat
limestone rock. Originally, the sands were mined with
draglines and
bucket-wheel excavators and moved to the processing plants by
conveyor belts. In recent years companies such as
Syncrude and
Suncor have switched to much cheaper shovel-and-truck operations using the biggest
power shovels (100 or more tons)
[36] and
dump trucks (400 tons) in the world. This has held
production costs to around $27 per barrel of
synthetic crude oil despite rising energy and labour costs.
[37]
-wikipedia