Steam-assisted gravity drainage

Three months after a series of devastating wildfires wreaked havoc in Alberta’s oil sands region, production is essentially back to normal. Temporary shutdowns at several production sites initially reduced the oil sands’ output by more than 1 MMbbl/d –– or about one-third the area’s pre-fire production level –– which trimmed inventories and goosed world oil prices. But the short-term closures appear to have had little effect on the Canadian and U.S. refineries that process oil sands-sourced crude. Now, oil sands producers (stung more than many by the collapse in oil prices) are focused again on reducing production costs in an effort to stay profitable in a low-oil-price era. Today, we summarize the current, post-wildfires state of oil sands production and consider the region’s future in the new, tight-oil/Shale Revolution world.