Sure, certainly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It was certainly an honour to fill in for you for a few minutes and I appreciate your confidence in me.
I just have a couple of questions to ask Dr. Hamza and Dr. Kasperski.
My understanding of the oil sands is.... When you take a look at conventional oil, it's down there thousands of feet below the surface in the geological formations. It's in an anaerobic environment.
When you take a look at the oil sands, the formations of Alberta, it's presumed that the oil has gone through the geologic formations and has come out in the oil sands deposits right now, and the bitumen is different because it has been exposed to an aerobic process.
Do I have that understanding right? That is why the bitumen is thick. It is not as clean as, let's say, a sweet crude. Do I understand the basics of that?