Natural Resources committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today to share my company's views on energy security, particularly on the oil sands and the vital role they play in meeting future energy demand. I know CAPP and others

Natural Resources committee  I would be happy to.

Natural Resources committee  I will slow down, sorry. We provide a substantial amount of funding for community-level programs. This includes important local community initiatives and training. With regard to oil sands technology, we're planning to spend over $300 million over the next five years to advance

Natural Resources committee  What we do with the technology is really based on a number of different factors, all of which are related. For instance, right now we're testing ceramic membranes in order to separate the oil and water more efficiently. We're investing in vacuum-insulated tubing in order to reduc

Natural Resources committee  On whether we think we're doing enough on research and development, I guess my answer is that we're doing a lot. We're doing what we think is appropriate at this time. We believe we're putting a substantial amount of commitment into this and a substantial amount of people into it

Natural Resources committee  I can only tell you what we're doing. We're trying to provide information. We're trying to participate on panels. We're trying to put our message out that we think we need a system that encourages lots of different developments, and we think we need a system that's transparent an

Natural Resources committee  I am aware of the actual amount of production that is upgraded in this country, and I'm aware of the amount that goes to the U.S. and is upgraded there, or refined there. Those are the things I'm primarily aware of.

Natural Resources committee  Yes, and I believe that 75% of the bitumen is upgraded right now in this country. The rest goes to the U.S. There is extra capacity in many of those refineries right now. They're not at full rate. They're capable of processing heavy crudes, much like we produce here. So it makes

Natural Resources committee  All over the world we live within the regimes that are put into place. The government puts in the regulatory regime, the environmental regimes, the requirements. We evaluate those and then we develop the projects accordingly under those plans. So we will—

Natural Resources committee  We will provide information to it, we'll try to provide what we think is the right direction on some of those things that help with the developments, and then we will live under the existing laws, yes.

Natural Resources committee  I believe it would be helpful to have more outlets for the product we make here, yes.

Natural Resources committee  Yes.

Natural Resources committee  I'll answer only from the in situ standpoint here. Right now I believe we're making great strides in this. Roughly 95% of the water we use is recycled water. We don't take any water from open sources and none from the Athabasca River. We're using non-potable water; effectively it

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, in short, just about everything. To be specific, we're looking at how we, first of all, employ people who have our safety culture. That's the most important thing to us, to make sure we don't have a number of safety issues. We're training people on that. That goes all

Natural Resources committee  Mr. Chair, we're working with universities. We spend quite a bit of time working with the universities on various programs. We are talking to engineers, to geologists. We spend quite a bit of time working with a lot of the aboriginal communities to try to describe what our projec