Why the oil sands no longer make economic sense

[cottonpicken]

My understanding is the oilsands is one of the lowest cost producers. Once the intial capital cost is overcome. Not sure of the transportation angle right now though. If I remember the numbers right a company like suncor is actually very strong right now and it's stock hasn't come near what a crescent point has.

[MBgrower]

Demand for oil is not going to go away for along time. Fracking is very expensive also. Wouldnt be surprised to see oil trading at 100 per barrell in the next 3 or 4 years.

[grassfarmer]

Furrow, the nearest Great lakes are twice the distance from the central valley/Los Angeles that southern BC is. Plus there is the little matter of the Rockies in between.

[furrowtickler]

Your post said water for fracking - that area is relatively close to the Great Lakes . Just going by what you posted - you never mentioned selling water to the central California area. Of course BC is closer but that had nothing to do with your post or this thread .
Oil will be back over $70 before it drops anouther 25%. A change in US presidency and oil pipelines will be on the books again .

[Hamloc]

The price of oil was as low as 10 dollars a barrel in the mid eighties and oil sands developement continued. There is no doubt the enviros would like the oil sands shuttered, still don't understand why oil shipped across the ocean from Iran, Iraq or the Saudi's is a better option than employing Canadians. The worlds increasing population and increasing incomes in China and India will keep the demand for oil strong. All that carbon taxes will do is make everything we consume more expensive and punish the poorest in society the most.

[dmlfarmer]

Furrow: Under Obama's presidency there has been more pipelines built than ever before. Last week the Financial Post had an article that stated: "America has built the equivalent of 10 Keystone pipelines since 2010 — and nobody said anything." Between 2008 and today there has been more than 15,750 miles of crude oil pipelines built in the US. Obama is not anti pipeline just anti keystone. Add in all the natural gas, petroleum and distrubition pipelines built over the last 7 years and Keystone looks like a matchbox toy line. And considering we have been unable to get east/west pipelines built that entirely cross Canadian lands, I find it hard to fault Obama alone for the failure of Keystone.

[Oliver88]

The issue with Keystone is every radical lefty like Neil Young started rallying against it so Hollywood's president wanted to reward his environmentalist base.

Obama knows where his Eco-donor money comes from and he wanted to reject this pipeline that garnered a lot of attention before the upcoming Paris climate conference.

Due to personal financial reasons/radical liberal ideology, Obama alone stopped this pipeline.....for now.

[tweety]

Should stop all oil development in Canada, leave it in the ground and just buy the basically free stuff from Saudi. Then when its all gone, sell the oilsands for ten times or more as much as today.

[bucket]

Tweety

Right. But you can't quit ensuring that they are ready to go.

Whenever cheap oil ends, better be ready to turn them up.

There are smart people that can figure out a cleaner process.

Somehow I think of the forest fires from up north this year and never remember seeing the same ill effects from the oilsands.

[BFW]

TWeety do you really believe that Saudi production would be priced where it is if there was no crude produced in the Alberta oilsands?

[ColevilleH2S]

What to be successful? Listen carefully to what Jeff Rubin suggests, and do the opposite.

[foragefarmer]

Oliver 88

It wasn't Neil Young who stop Keystone, but rather a Nebraska rancher. In fact it's still in court in Nebraska. Not sure how you can blame the "Lefties" on this one.

Harper never helped the cause either with is cocky remarks of " it's a no brainer" and "no is not a option"