Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[skono4]

ECA--He's talking about expanding his production of tar sands by drilling and injecting steam to draw out the bitumen as opposed to other companies that mine the tar sands from the surface. Drilling extraction is done with natural gas generated steam but the costs of that have gone up so now they're talking abour building a huge nuclear power plant to generate the steam. Over 50% of the cost of a barrel of oil from the tar comes from the cost of energy (mostly natural gas) used in the process. Labor costs are rising, steel and commodity prices are rising, infrastructure and energy costs are rising.

Estimates of profitability on the enormous investment in tar sands is a moving target, and it's not moving down.