Official (Alberta) Oil Discussion Thread

[Bill Bumface]

Fair enough. Open pit mining in Norway with minimal opposition is hard to picture. Off-shore does a good job of "out of sight, out of mind".

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Norway is completely different, they also don't have things like road blocks to tide water, their situation is much easier then ours.



Also we've seen it, if Canada reduces their exports, countries with worse environmental records and laws, and worse Human Rights records take up the slack happily.


Just in the act of Canada who actually have environmental standards being a major supplier would reduce the global carbon footprint. We should also be heavily encouraging the shipment of natural gas to countries that are using for example coal as a primary electricity generating fuel. We should be finding a way to not only take market share from countries like Saudi Arabia, the US, Russia etc, but selling our technology which brings in money to improve out technology and research alternative energy. And frankly we shouldn't be importing one friggen drop of oil and gas from Saudi Arabia.

Replacing coal with Canadian gas is a big win for the environment. Flooding the world with high carbon intensive bitumen is not.

[InglewoodFan]

Originally Posted by GGG

No one is sticking a straw down in the ground and oil comes out.

For example:Kuwait’s latest project is a massive cyclic steam field.

https://www.hydrocarbons-technology....pment-project/

I did a bit of work on that one, almost $120k per flowing barrel. ($7 bn for 60,000 BPD) Can you even imagine proposing that for a SAGD project in AB these days? And it is all waste well injection for phase 1. Their water source was originally treated waste water from Kuwait City, not sure if it still is. Subsequent phases are envisioned to have some water treatment and re-use.

Norway brought on 450,000 BPD this past fall in one chunk this past fall https://www.equinor.com/en/what-we-d...-sverdrup.html Looks like somewhere around $23k per flowing barrel. Equinor has lots of good words about how low CO2 their production is, but the underlying theme is they can't leave that kind of tax revenue on the table by not developing the new field.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by DiracSpike

You do know “magnitudinal” isn’t a real word, right?

This is the kind of content I come here for.

[Frequitude]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Replacing coal with Canadian gas is a big win for the environment. Flooding the world with high carbon intensive bitumen is not.

The carbon difference between producing a bunch of “carbon intensive” bitumen and producing a bunch of “cleaner” oil is like pissing in the ocean relative to the carbon produced by burning any type of oil. This is what is maddening to people in the Alberta O&G industry. Shutting us down isn’t going to do anything. It’s just going to make someone else richer and able to afford the future transition to a greener energy base.

The only way to stop producing carbon is to stop burning it. Production will take care of itself if that happens.

It’s the inconvenient truth for the environmental movement.

[Bill Bumface]

^ I so very strongly agree with that.

Although it may not have been clear, this is the path that I think gets more people in Canada onboard with exploiting our resources.

"Burning oil is a big problem, but people still do it. Let's sell it to them, and then use the money we make to invest in things that help them get their energy in other ways".

[Slava]

Oil is up significantly this morning with the US airstrike in Iraq. Not a good reason for optimism, but rising prices are a good sign for Alberta, at least in the shorter term.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

Oil is up significantly this morning with the US airstrike in Iraq. Not a good reason for optimism, but rising prices are a good sign for Alberta, at least in the shorter term.

The risk to the global economy probably outweighs the price spike.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Replacing coal with Canadian gas is a big win for the environment. Flooding the world with high carbon intensive bitumen is not.

Maybe. Carbon intensity of other oils is pretty high as well, and environmental regulations are not as strict as Canada basically everywhere. As just one example, the Permian is now flaring/venting an estimated 750 million cubic feet of gas per day. That is equivalent to ~5% of Canadas gas production getting converted directed to atmospheric greenhouse gases because the american rules don't require producers to do anything with it. That carbon into the atmosphere should absolutely be included in the carbon intensity of their oil.

I know making steam for sagd is carbon intensive, but more and more of it is cogen now (which reduces carbon emissions elsewhere) and I don't particularly trust the comparative emissions reporting from other countries.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Maybe. Carbon intensity of other oils is pretty high as well, and environmental regulations are not as strict as Canada basically everywhere. As just one example, the Permian is now flaring/venting an estimated 750 million cubic feet of gas per day. That is equivalent to ~5% of Canadas gas production getting converted directed to atmospheric greenhouse gases because the american rules don't require producers to do anything with it. That carbon into the atmosphere should absolutely be included in the carbon intensity of their oil.

I know making steam for sagd is carbon intensive, but more and more of it is cogen now (which reduces carbon emissions elsewhere) and I don't particularly trust the comparative emissions reporting from other countries.

750 million cubic ft of gas at .0011 GJ/ft^3 could roughly produce 800,000 bbls of oil using SAGD with an SOR of 2.5 and a heat input of 2.6GJ/m^3 steam.

That’s about 20% of Alberta oil production just wasted.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Maybe. Carbon intensity of other oils is pretty high as well, and environmental regulations are not as strict as Canada basically everywhere. As just one example, the Permian is now flaring/venting an estimated 750 million cubic feet of gas per day. That is equivalent to ~5% of Canadas gas production getting converted directed to atmospheric greenhouse gases because the american rules don't require producers to do anything with it. That carbon into the atmosphere should absolutely be included in the carbon intensity of their oil.

I know making steam for sagd is carbon intensive, but more and more of it is cogen now (which reduces carbon emissions elsewhere) and I don't particularly trust the comparative emissions reporting from other countries.

750 million cubic ft of gas at .0011 GJ/ft^3 could roughly produce 800,000 bbls of oil using SAGD with an SOR of 2.5

Or another way the Alberta generates roughly 10 GW of power. This wasted gas could Supply about 80% of Alberta’s power supply.

[Regorium]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...moks-1.5415586

Here we go again. I wonder how this ends. The RCMP cannot monitor these illegal acts 24/7, and it's obvious these guys will never respect Canadian law.

So how can this be solved? I'd be arresting the entire clan for violating the injunction, but I get the optics of that outcome as well.

[Weitz]

This is what people were referring to about TMX and what actually matters when there isn't praise for building in AB or at a terminal site. Construction in BC and what police and government will actually do to uphold the law.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Regorium

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...moks-1.5415586

Here we go again. I wonder how this ends. The RCMP cannot monitor these illegal acts 24/7, and it's obvious these guys will never respect Canadian law.

So how can this be solved? I'd be arresting the entire clan for violating the injunction, but I get the optics of that outcome as well.

From experience working on CGL, these "eviction notices" come with the implicit threat of violence.

[cal_guy]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Maybe. Carbon intensity of other oils is pretty high as well, and environmental regulations are not as strict as Canada basically everywhere. As just one example, the Permian is now flaring/venting an estimated 750 million cubic feet of gas per day. That is equivalent to ~5% of Canadas gas production getting converted directed to atmospheric greenhouse gases because the american rules don't require producers to do anything with it. That carbon into the atmosphere should absolutely be included in the carbon intensity of their oil.

Things like flaring are included in the carbon intensity of that oil production.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

Things like flaring are included in the carbon intensity of that oil production.

I worked for a company who was venting a lot, here in Alberta, and realized they were grossly underreporting it. They quickly deployed small scale flaring devices.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is an even more common occurrence in the US, without the fixing it part.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by cal_guy

Things like flaring are included in the carbon intensity of that oil production.

Ok. Probably the officially reported to the Texas Railroad Commission flaring numbers, right? The ones that aren't available for 2018 yet (it says n/a in their table for 2018 right now, which isn't right)? Because the unofficial but credible flaring/venting numbers for 2019 are about 3x that of 2017.

It also varies dramatically by county/operator. Some operators are responsible and have built pipeline egress. Some not so much. Guaranteed their are full counties in the Permian producing higher carbon intensive oil than a sagd project.

[Slava]

The SCC just dismissed the BC appeal from the bench. This would have been the claim that BC had some authority over what is transported through the pipes (and effectively have given them a veto over projects they don't like).

In short, a huge win for TMX.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Slava

The SCC just dismissed the BC appeal from the bench. This would have been the claim that BC had some authority over what is transported through the pipes (and effectively have given them a veto over projects they don't like).

In short, a huge win for TMX.

Source? Great news for Confederation.

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1217911808331276288