Imperial Oil (Esso) may not be a big player in southeast Saskatchewan any more because they've put some serious eggs into the oilsands basket in northern Alberta, said Chris Hodgson, strategic initiatives manager for Imperial Oil, during a a brief interview with The Mercury last Wednesday evening.
But in the future, especially with the renewal of interest and the Bakken play, anything could happen and there could be a reawakened interest by the company in the land and oil recovery projects in this region.
Hodgson spoke to the crowd attending the Estevan Chamber of Commerce's annual general meeting at Spectra Place, pointing out some of the advances that had been made in oilsands development in recent years.
During the address, Hodgson showed a 12 minute video intended for American audiences, that pointed out the diminishing environmental footprint that was being left behind as the bitumen-based oilsands projects move into a new era.
He said the Kearl oilsands project supported by Imperial Oil is incorporating improved technology while they work toward capturing as much as 175 billion barrels of oil that is in reserve in the Athabasca region of Alberta.
He said the oilsands could add $34 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015 with a 3.5 million barrels per day production rate within the next decade.
Hodgson reminded the audience that oilsands development has been going on since the early 1970s with the Syncrude startup and the environmental footprint has been steadily diminishing ever since.
"Between 80 to 95 per cent of the water used is recycled. Tailings pond lands will be reclaimed, in fact some of them already have been. We're also reducing the amount of heat required to turn bitumen (the heaviest of the oil) into liquid oil for shipping. In the future, the majority of our energy will come from coal and oil," Hodgson noted in a graph that was displayed to the 260 people in attendance.
There will be growth in the energy that is produced by wind, solar and biofuels industries and the biomass, hydro and geothermal sectors will also produce a bit more while nuclear energy supplies will grow only slightly, he predicted. None will probably surpass the pace that will be set by coal and oil.
Hodgson also stated that Canada remains a solid third in global production of oil behind only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela and well ahead of other well known oil producers such as Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Russia and the United States.
"Two hundred billion will be invested in oilsands production over the next decade," he said "And it will add $2.1 trillion to gross domestic production over the next 25 years while creating 126,000 jobs outside Alberta."
Hodgson explained the various methods that are used to extract oilsands products which include actual strip mining of the top 20 per cent.
"Doing all this, less than .02 per cent of the boreal forest has been disturbed over the 40 years that oilsands have been mined and in the meantime over one million trees have been planted and the industry has formed a partnership with Ducks Unlimited to reclaim 104 hectares at the Syncrude site and that was done in 2008. And that is government certified," Hodgson said.
He added that the company's environmental arms have collected seeds from native plants and have kept up communication with First Nations people to make sure that all bases are covered and that includes a replacement program for any lost fishing habitat.
"In the future, there will be higher bitumen recoveries with no wet tailings ponds," he said in conclusion.
