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China invests in Canada oil sands

tlmorg02

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BBC NEWS | Business | China invests in Canada oil sands

PetroChina has agreed to buy a 60% stake in two planned Canadian oil sands projects for $1.7bn (£1bn).

The firm, which is Asia's largest oil company, is buying the holdings in the MacKay River and Dover fields from Canadian firm Athabasca Oil Sands.

The two fields hold about five billion barrels of oil, and Canada's government is expected to back the deal.

Canada's Alberta oil sands hold the world's second-largest crude reserves, but the cost of extraction is high.

This is because the process of separating the oil from the sand is both energy and labour intensive, and as such it has only been cost effective when global oil prices have been high.

Analysts say world oil prices need to be above $80 a barrel for the Canadian oil sands to be viable.

Oil is currently trading at about $70 a barrel after hitting highs of $147 last summer, and a low of near $30 at the start of this year.

"The Canadian government is looking for investment and injections of capital," said William Lacey, an analyst at FirstEnergy Capital.

"I don't see why this wouldn't be viewed as a positive."

Canada's oil sands are estimated to hold a total 173 billion barrels of oil, the world's second-largest reserves behind Saudi Arabia.

Now, why did the U.S. not jump on this energy supply? The Chinese are going to shore-up oil that we will not have access to. Thoughts?
 
The US is up there to some extent. It's only doable when the price of oil is relatively high, though.

That's why the government should have spent 2 billion bucks on this, rather than subsidizing oil fields in Brazil.
 
I must say, I see no problem with investing in alternate energy sources, as oil will not last forever, but at least we should have our hand in where we can to maintain a supply. Especially seeing as how this oil money would not go towards supporting terrorists.
 
BBC NEWS | Business | China invests in Canada oil sands



Now, why did the U.S. not jump on this energy supply? The Chinese are going to shore-up oil that we will not have access to. Thoughts?

Maybe because as your article states the operation is a money loser at oil prices less than $70 a barrel????

You wanted to use our Government's money for your oil sand speculation scheme?

Or are you telling our energy companies just how dumb they are for not getting in?

Which is it?
 
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That's why the government should have spent 2 billion bucks on this, rather than subsidizing oil fields in Brazil.

I would rather put money into cheap oil than oil that is extremely expensive to extract, but that is just me.

PetroChina is putting money into Canada Oil Sands, if you think we should invest more up there then why don't you take it up with American Oil Companies. After all, should this not be something left to the private sector?
 
I would rather put money into cheap oil than oil that is extremely expensive to extract, but that is just me.

PetroChina is putting money into Canada Oil Sands, if you think we should invest more up there then why don't you take it up with American Oil Companies. After all, should this not be something left to the private sector?

Perhaps PBO should have taken that 2 billion and enticed American oil companies to go after the oil? A better investment, perhaps? More American jobs, for sure.
 
Perhaps PBO should have taken that 2 billion and enticed American oil companies to go after the oil? A better investment, perhaps? More American jobs, for sure.
Better yet, perhaps he could have taken that money and returned it to the taxpayer and got the government out of the business of manipulating the market.
 
Perhaps PBO should have taken that 2 billion and enticed American oil companies to go after the oil? A better investment, perhaps? More American jobs, for sure.

Oh ok, so you are advocating the nationalization of American Oil companies or at least state support of them. Gotcha.
 
Oh ok, so you are advocating the nationalization of American Oil companies or at least state support of them. Gotcha.

You're a spin master, for sure. Subsidies and nationalization of industry are two different things. You do know that, right?

Are you opposed to farm subsidies, as well? We don't need food, either, I reckon.
 
Estimated U.S. oil shale reserves total an astonishing 1.5 trillion barrels of oil - or more than five times the
stated reserves of Saudi Arabia.

Oil Shale Reserves

So, how much is in that Canadian sand box?
 
Better yet, perhaps he could have taken that money and returned it to the taxpayer and got the government out of the business of manipulating the market.

How would subsidizing oil exploration manipulating the market?
 
How would subsidizing oil exploration manipulating the market?

If you don't know how artificially reducing the cost of exploration doesnt effect market prices then you shouldn't be in this discussion.
 
You're a spin master, for sure. Subsidies and nationalization of industry are two different things. You do know that, right?

Oh ok, so you are cool with the government subsidizing profitable industries and telling them what to invest in.


Are you opposed to farm subsidies, as well?

Yes I am.
 
No, I'm not. How about you educate us?
Exploration = overhead

Reducing overhead = reducing price of product or increasing profit margin = manipulation
 
How would subsidizing oil exploration manipulating the market?

Market Distortions.

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_distortion]Market distortion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
Exploration = overhead

Reducing overhead = reducing price of product or increasing profit margin = manipulation

Only in this case it's more harmful..You are actually using 1 for 1 tax dollars to decrease the cost of the World market price.

We would be literally dumping the Billions in to lower the World market price by a tiny fraction.

How kind of us.
 
We don't have the hours in the day....besides the fact you don't wish to learn.

So, you don't know, do you?


Oh ok, so you are cool with the government subsidizing profitable industries and telling them what to invest in.


If we were talking about blue jeans, I would say no. But, we're talking about oil exploration that would create thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of jobs.





Exploration = overhead

Reducing overhead = reducing price of product or increasing profit margin = manipulation

Oil is a commodity, it doesn't go up and down with a company's operating costs. It costs the same amount of money to produce a barrle of oil when a barrel is $70 as it did when oil was $100. If anything, the opposite is the case, an oil company's overhead goes up and down, because of a rise, or fall in the price of oil. That's Business 101.
 
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Someone explain it to the coonass, please. I don't have the patience.
 
Someone explain it to the coonass, please. I don't have the patience.

You don't have a clue, so you resort to racial slurs and personal attacks. Why don't you just call me the n-word, because I'm not a Cajun.
 
Oil is a commodity, it doesn't go up and down with a company's operating costs. It costs the same amount of money to produce a barrle of oil when a barrel is $70 as it did when oil was $100. If anything, the opposite is the case, an oil company's overhead goes up and down, because of a rise, or fall in the price of oil. That's Business 101.

What you don't seem to get is that all oil in the ground cannot be produced for the same price. There is oil that is economically recoverable at 20 dollars a barrel and there is oil that is not economically recoverable until prices are over 100 dollars a barrel. By subsidizing extremely costly to produce oil shale and oil sands you are creating a market distortion.
 
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