Oil's well, apparently (and so is denial)

Canadian oil production to double by 2020

Canadian oil production will double by 2020, to nearly five million barrels a day, as companies boost their oilsands development plans, according to a new forecast by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers. The industry lobby group said yesterday oil production from all sources will probably increase from 2.5 million barrels per day last year to 4.6 million b/d in 2015 -- an increase of 750,000 b/d from last year. The forecast is based on a survey of CAPP's 150 members, who account for 95% of oil and gas produced in Canada. Growth after 2015 will expand total Canadian production to nearly 4.9 million b/d by 2020. With those volumes, Canada will climb to fourth-largest world oil producer, after Russia, Saudi Arabia and the US. It is now ranked eighth, after Russia, Saudi Arabia, the US, Iran, China, Mexico and Norway. Canada is already the largest oil supplier to the US. Greg Stringham, vp of CAPP, said oil volumes are expanding faster than anticipated a year ago largely as a result of new oilsands projects using steam-assisted gravity drainage technology. Oil sands production, which now exceeds one million b/d, is forecast to reach 3.5 million b/d by 2015 and 4.0 million b/d by 2020, accounting for more than 80% of Canadian production. Stringham said the forecast is based on members' assessment of what is realistic and is not on all announced projects.
(National Post 060518)

This is spun to sound like positive news, but it should be mentioned that demand today globally is 84 million barrels per day and is predicted to be 120 million bbl/d in 2020. 5 million bbl/d will only be able to satisfy a fifth to a quarter of the United States' daily consumption by then, and by those estimates only satisfy 4% of the world's daily consumption. Where are the other 115 million barrels going to come from? Saudi Arabia is pumping out 10 million bbl/d currently and there are huge doubts that they will ever be able to produce at any higher rate than that. Unless there are some megafields far offshore waiting to be discovered (and there haven't been any megafield discoveries since the 1980s), we're in for a world of hurt, and soon.

As well, the large fields currently in production in Norway, China, and Mexico (adios Cantarell), as well as predictions for the rest, will already be in decline. A major concern of mine is how much devastation complete exploitation of the tar sands is going to leave on the environment in Western Canada. All that's going to be left when everything is stripped out is a huge toxic hole, and the associated air and water pollution. We probably won't have any clean water tables left in Alberta by then unless they're piping and sucking it out of Great Slave Lake by then.

And for what? A global sacrifice to keep the party that's in its death throes going for just a little longer. grrr. It's all an attempt at hallucination.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/