ConocoPhillips looking to divest some oilsands assets

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that ConocoPhillips is looking to sell some assets, including some oilsands ones. The story is behind a paywall but BOOM! You're welcome.


Reasoning is apparently that these assets (along with Australian LNG projects) are too expensive for what they're producing, particularly with the Canadian (and Australian) dollars so high. It's unclear which assets they had in mind, or if it's all of them. Conoco's main oilsands assets are Surmont (which it owns 100% of) and Christina Lake/Foster Creek (which it owns 50% of with Cenovus, who operates the properties). It was looking to sell some of Surmont and some other little (or early) projects last year, not sure what came of it in the end. Maybe this is the same process and they're just taking their time.

Imperial says Kearl emissions will be the same as North American average

Comparison of different sources of oil.
Stolen from the Globe and Mail, as I'm wont to do.

In what seems to be pretty significant throw-down (is that a thing?), Imperial predicts that the emissions from Kearl will be the same as the average for North America, and well below the amount from heavy oil sources in places like Venezuela and California, or light oil where they flare a lot of gas, like Nigeria. See chart, they predict they'll be almost 40% less than middle east heavy oil at 103.6 kg of CO2 per barrel of refined product (?).

Oil price drop's effect on the oil sands

From the article.

This Financial Post article discusses the effect of the recent drop in oil prices on oil production in Canada and oil sands production specifically. Prices have been driven by news of slowing growth in China, a weak US jobs report, economic uncertainty in Europe and an easing of tensions in the middle east (other than Syria, of course, which doesn't export much oil anyway). It claims some oil sands projects are now uneconomic.

Oil sand myths

There is a lot of misinformation about the oil sands. In this article I hope to clear up some of the major misconceptions I see bandied about on various websites. I'll try to be objective but keep in mind I am in the "pro development" camp. Read on after the break.