Natural Resources Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[Dr. Hassan Hamza]

No. Actually, when we talked about the 50 square kilometres, that is the area where they are storing the waste, the tailings, and so on. The mineable area of the oil sands is much more extensive than that. If you look at the map and compare it to the size of Alberta, it is maybe a quarter or 20% of the size of Alberta.

[Howard Brown]

That is what could be mined. What you might ultimately be able to recover from the oil sands is much larger than 174.5 billion barrels, depending on future technology.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

The next question on that would be whether the $125 billion investment we would expect between 2006 and 2015 would be the amount of investment required for that recoverable portion.

[Dr. Hassan Hamza]

Yes, but it would not be for the intermediate layer we talked about.

[Howard Brown]

To be precise, the $125 billion, according to the project proponents, would be enough to increase production from about one million barrels a day to about 4.5 million barrels a day. So you'd get an incremental 3.5 million barrels a day for an investment of $125 billion, according to the proponents.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

With respect to the investment that's required, does that also include reclaiming the footprint?

Okay.

The next piece I'd be interested in knowing is whether you have any idea of what further investment in this will be required for the refineries, as well as for the pipelines. Do we have any idea of what the investment by companies is going to be for that?

[Howard Brown]

No, because you'd have to make an assumption about whether they are going to build an upgrade or refinery complex in Edmonton. People have talked about it, but that's a different thing from doing it. There are many pipeline projects out there, so to get that figure you'd have to go through and say that this one is going to go, that one isn't, these two, yes, that one no. It's a bit tricky to do.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

I have a final question I'd like to ask. When you go through the environmental impact assessment for any of these projects that are being done, are they required to file a formal land use plan, and is that followed through and monitored?

[Howard Brown]

Yes, on both counts, is the answer to that, and there are public hearings to go along with that as well.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Howard Brown]

The $125 billion, of course, is the private investment in the oil sands projects. It does not include the public investment you might need in infrastructure, for example, in the local municipalities, in roads, and in all that kind of stuff.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Is that a joint kind of thing between the environment...? Has anybody worked the urban factor into this, or is it just the project that would be involved in the land use planning?

[Howard Brown]

It would be an issue, really, for Alberta, but it does impose constraints on the ability to develop the oil sands, because if you don't have roads and sewers, you don't have houses, and if you don't have houses, you don't have workers, and if you don't have workers, you're not going to have development.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

That concludes the questioning.

I did want to offer Mr. Cliffe an opportunity. Was there something you wished you had an opportunity to say?

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Mr. Chair, there are some of us who still have questions.

Could I finish my original...? I know I've gone for one round of questioning, Mr. Chair, but if we're not done questioning, I have a few more questions to follow up on about the technology and stuff that I was working on in the round that I had to end and that I shared with Christian.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

I'd say we probably have five minutes, then, if you want to do that.

[Claude DeBellefeuille, Bloc, Beauharnois—Salaberry, QC]

Mr. Chair, with your permission, I would like to ask Mr. Brown for clarification following the answers he has given me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

We'll allow Mr. Trost five minutes and then we can finish up with Madame DeBellefeuille.

Okay, go ahead.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To follow up on a few more of my questions on the technology, you'd indicated in my previous round that it's mostly open-pit mining. Correct? Why has there not been more emphasis on the in situ steam-injection cylinder? Is that because of cost issues? What is the particular--? As you said, it's an adaptation of a technology we use in Lloydminster and those areas for heavy oil. Why hasn't there been more emphasis on that? Looking at the map, I've assumed quite a few areas below 200 metres could be drilled.

[Howard Brown]

The answer to that is people started with the part that was easy, and I use “easy” in quotation marks, because none of it is absolutely easy, but the most accessible resource was the mineable resource. The technologies one would use for in situ are all of relatively recent development. So you do what you can with the easy part and then as the resource expands, technology--

[Dr. Hassan Hamza]

It's not only easy but also in surface mining you recover over 90% of the bitumen and in situ you recover less than 40% because of the nature of--

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

So it would be much more like a classic reservoir where you've got your gas cap and something and yield pressures--

[Dr. Hassan Hamza]

Exactly. There's no difference in that at all.

[Bradley Trost, Conservative, Saskatoon—Humboldt, SK]

So essentially what they're doing is in situ, which is essentially pretty close to classic reservoir engineering.

[Dr. Hassan Hamza]

Definitely. Except for one development that was developed by Alberta in collaboration with Canada a long time ago. It's called underground tunnels. They go underground and make a tunnel and then they drill from that tunnel to recover the oil; it goes down into that tunnel, then it goes up. There's a facility in Fort McMurray called underground test facility that has been funded by the province and the federal government and some companies. This technology is not applied in the classical...