The technological challenge of producing heavy oil

• Main Author: Skinner, R
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Institute for Energy Studies 2016
• Subjects: Athabasca River; Canada
• Online Access: https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:1cf50ade-85d7-4373-9c70-cb774fb5dd33

From the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia, California and northern Canada, natural seeps of degraded petroleum or bitumen have intrigued humans for thousands of years. At some unknown time a value-adding technological breakthrough took place along the Athabasca River in northern Alberta when an aboriginal discovered that if bitumen oozing from the oil sands on the river bank was mixed with the tar or pitch from spruce trees, it made a far superior caulking material for canoes than pitch alone. As sources of lighter grades of crude oil become depleted and what remains increasingly inaccessible for the international oil industry, its attention has turned to unconventional oil and gas. A decade ago few knew or cared about this sub-sector of the petroleum business. By 2010 according to IHS Herold, unconventional resources accounted for 25 percent of global oil and gas M&A; value; US and Canadian unconventional oil and gas deals amounted to $100 billion over the past five years. In 2009 and 2010, 30 to 40 percent of all acquisitions were by Asian NOCs. They seek a position in these vast resources and the technical expertise of the local companies, who have been testing technologies to develop them, but lack sufficient capital to launch major projects. Paradoxically, while unconventional oil and gas have attracted a large share of M&A; capital, their contribution to world oil supply is unlikely to exceed 10 percent by 2030. Technological breakthroughs could change this, but it is argued here, this is unlikely.