Random Note On Canadian Oil Sands Production

I'm not going to bother to look for a link, but it's been said over and over, with or without the Keystone XL pipeline, the Canadian oil sands will keep producing more and more oil. Here's just one random headline supporting that contention: Cenovus Energy increases oil production from the Canadian oil sands in the most recent quarter. The Oil and Gas Journal is reporting:

Cenovus Energy Inc., Calgary, reported a 15% increase in its western Canadian oil production in the quarter ended Mar. 31 on strong performance by its Christina Lake oil sands project.

The increased crude oil output was offset by a 27% decline in the average crude oil sales price the company received compared with the same period a year earlier, but the lower oil prices benefited refining operations, Cenovus noted.

Combined oil sands production at Foster Creek and Christina Lake averaged 100,347 b/d, up 22% from the 2012 first quarter. Christina Lake output rose 79% to an average 44,351 b/d net while Foster Creek was down 2% on greater than expected downtime on some production wells.

Conventional oil production, including Pelican Lake, averaged almost 80,000 b/d in the quarter, a 7% increase.

How coincidental, a link. The Oil and Gas Journal is, again, reporting: 

Defeating the proposed Keystone XL pipeline project would not keep Canada from producing crude oil from its oil sands, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said during a visit to Washington.

“Several of the project’s opponents believe it would be a decisive body blow which would keep the oil sands in the ground. That’s simply wrong,” he said in remarks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Apr. 24.

Oliver called on the Obama administration to approve the project and allow construction to begin on the pipeline’s final 875 miles.

“This project is completely in step with the long and productive US-Canadian energy relationship,” Oliver said. “Rejecting it would be a serious reversal of that relationship.”
He disputed environmental organizations’ charges that the crude would be exported once it reached the US Gulf Coast, saying it simply would replace heavy oil US processors now import from Venezuela, which has become a much less reliable supplier.