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Originally Posted by you&me
I assume you're referring to the oil sands as the most expensive method for extraction in the bolded?
I read recently that the oil sands are now costing less per barrel than anywhere else in North America. The reason they're perceived to be so expensive is the massive capex required to get the mines up and running... But once they are, the opex is relatively minor and the life of the mines are measured decades, rather than years or even months with some of the traditional drilled wells.
I'm far from an O&G shill - literally zero connection for me or my extended family - but it seems sensible to me that if someone is going to produce those last barrels, it might as well be us... To put it indelicately, the damage has been done (with regard to the mines, etc)... we might as well wring out as much as we can from it.
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Absolutely, go clean that dirt and use the byproduct. The roads are built, the trucks are moving, and there is money to be made. (Just make sure you have enough money for the endgame of restoring the land after the market bottoms out.)
It will get tougher and tougher though as everyone pushing to cash out on the game. OPEC is seeing diminishing returns on their market manipulations and are now pushing more into selling as much as they can while they can. If they can keep pumping out cheap oil below the ~$20 per barrel mark (or whatever it is nowadays) that an oil sands might need to stay at to stay profitable then Alberta companies will be in trouble.
At the same time, OPEC countries are investing big money into renewables. It is almost as if they are saying one thing (oil will last forever) and doing another thing (preparing for the end of oil).
The UCP are simply not that clever. New money should be allocated to building a new industry that can keep this province running after O&G enters it's twilight but the UCP actually believe the propaganda that oil will last forever... or worse yet, they know it won't and would rather crash our province into bankruptcy than actually plan for the future. So of course they keep chasing new money after the old industry instead of prioritizing anything else.