Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to be here today representing our industry as well as Petrobank Energy and Resources and all our shareholders.
I've provided a brief slide deck for you to step through this with me.
Petrobank is a Canadian-born and -bred company. We are a pure upstream player, which means we have no interest in pipelines, refineries, or end-use marketing. Over the past ten years, we've grown into a group of three companies currently operating in the oil sands area through our Whitesands division, internationally primarily in Latin America through Petrominerales, and in the Canadian conventional oil and gas business through Petrobakken.
I would emphasize that while we'll talk about oil sands and technology here today, we would be happy to answer any questions regarding either the international outlook on the oil and gas industry or the use of multi-stage horizontal fracturing in developing Canada's resource plays in western Canada, which Petrobakken is the leader in.
Moving on to slide number four, which is a brief outline of the oil sands assets and opportunities in western Canada, we talk in big numbers in our industry. We talk about trillions, billions, and millions of barrels. To put things in perspective, 1.7 trillion barrels of heavy oil and bitumen resources have been identified in Canada. That's out of a potential worldwide total of nine trillion barrels that have been identified to date.
A surprising thing is that current technologies available to our industry can recover approximately 10% of this. But even a 10% recovery factor on Alberta's oil sands and heavy oil assets makes Canada the second-largest reserve holder in the world. This is a huge part of Canada's wealth. But the potential to increase that recovery factor, even by another 10%, would have a significant impact on the long-term worth of the Canadian economy and the long-term benefits that would be available to all Canadians.
Petrobank is an applied technology company and we're looking to implement technologies that will be the next step, or the disruptive step, to take those recovery levels to a new level.
If I can draw your attention to slide five, we outline there the THAI technology. The whole concept of Petrobank as an applied technology company is to take existing resources and find new and better ways to extract more value out of them. As one example, Petrobank is the owner and the developer of this made-in-Canada technology, but increasing the resource recovery on the substantial resource accumulations in Alberta and Saskatchewan has a significant impact on the wealth of our nation. With the ability to achieve higher recovery rates and potentially double existing technologies' recovery rates, we have the ability to create a large, sustainable, long-term growth opportunity in our industry.
The technology we're applying, which we hope will be the next step for the world to apply, invokes lower capital cost, it involves much lower operating costs, and it generates a much higher net back on every barrel. It does this through a process that I'll explain through a little diagram here. It's important to understand this technology uses no water, it consumes no natural gas, and it has a very small surface footprint, so it also has a very minimal impact on the surface.
The other aspects of it on the environmental front also allow us to reduce the overall carbon footprint of a barrel of oil, because an upgraded barrel requires less processing at the refining end. We already have reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by about 50% compared to other technologies. And in the event there's a viable CO2 carbon capture technology in place, we are carbon capture ready.
I'll draw your attention to the diagram of the THAI process and quickly explain how this works. More importantly, I want the committee to understand that we already have two demonstration plants of this technology in action today, one in Alberta and one in Saskatchewan. Our first commercial operation is under construction in Saskatchewan as we speak. And we have two more operations awaiting regulatory approval.
The process itself is quite simple. As diagrammed here, it involves drilling horizontal wells to the base of a heavy oil reservoir. Instead of injecting steam and generating steam on the surface, we inject air into the reservoir. The air creates a combustion reaction. The combustion reaction is not unlike the reaction you would have with a charcoal briquette in your barbecue--the harder you blow on it, the hotter it glows, and the more heat it generates.
This heat is high enough to melt the oil in place. It actually cracks some of the lighter hydrocarbons in the oil, leaves behind some of the heavier hydrocarbon as coke deposited in the reservoir, and the production that comes up to the surface is partially upgraded.
The next slide gives you an idea of what a commercial operation would look like. This is our Kerrobert facility in Saskatchewan. I draw your attention to the fact that there are no huge steam generators. There are no tailings ponds. There is no water use of any significance in this process. Obviously, it's an operation we can integrate with the existing farming operations in place on the land there today.
Finally, on our slide that shows the international potential for heavy oil, it's important to note that heavy oil is a global resource. Outside of Canada few of these resources can match us from a regulatory, environmental protection, political transparency, human rights, or democratic freedom perspective.
It's very important for Canada to be a leader in the development of heavy oil technology, both for application at home across our vast resource, but also as a leader in showing the world how best to accomplish efficient resource extraction and wealth creation.
In conclusion, while resource development is typically a provincial responsibility, there are three initiatives at the federal level that we would strongly encourage.
First, we would hope you could provide a streamlined, transparent, and practical regulatory environment to allow our industry to grow and prosper, for all Canadians.
Secondly, it would be our deepest hope that you will protect Canadian intellectual property, both at home and abroad, and to promote the application of Canadian technology on a global basis.
Finally, it's our deepest hope that you can project an image of the Canadian energy industry, both in Canada and around the world, as the best-regulated, safest, most ethical, most transparent, democratic, and environmentally respectful industry in the world.
Thank you very much.