New focus on tar sands

By many analyses, we shall soon be approaching 'peak oil' production — the time when annual output begins to stall in the face of ever-increasing demand. Oil companies are therefore increasing efforts to locate new sources and, in the face of the large-scale environmental problems caused by the failure of a deep-drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico, the successful development of Canada's tar sands has triggered a rush by Shell and other oil companies to set up similar operations in Russia, Congo, and even Madagascar, a report published last month reveals. Soaring crude oil prices and a growing shortage of drilling sites have encouraged the energy industry to look at a series of 'unconventional' hydrocarbon deposits, threatening vulnerable environment and communities in places such as Jordan, Morocco, as well as the US, Friends of the Earth say in a review titled Tar sands: fuelling the climate crisis. The report came just ahead of Shell's annual general meeting and on the day Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmentalists, launched its survey warning that Canadian tar sands extraction could pose an even bigger risk to an oil company share price than the US rig disaster, which knocked $30 billion off the value of BP. Feature Tar sands and oil shale are considered by green groups to be more damaging than normal oil operations because extraction is energy and water intensive. " Tar sands — bitumen that is extracted and upgraded to produce synthetic crude — has been heavily criticised for its poor environmental and social outcomes, locally and globally. Canada is currently the only major centre of production but investment is expanding, including by European companies such as BP, Shell, Total, and ENI, " the report says. The group wants the European Union to use its fuel quality directive to take into account the different carbon footprints of oil-based fuels entering the EU by assigning them a value to represent the strength of their greenhouse gas effect. Otherwise " it Success with processing tar sands in Canada and the damage caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico are causing companies to look further afield for these land-based sources. Nigel Williams reports. Spreading: Extraction of oil from tar sands is attracting growing interest as crude oil prices rise in spite of the environmental impact. (Photo: Silverstreak photo/Alamy.)