The Biggest Oil Opportunity in the World - And How You Can Profit From It

Where is the second largest deposit of oil reserves in the world?

In the oil sands region of Alberta, Canada. Oil sands are a thick, viscous mixture of bitumen, sand, clay and water. Alberta oil sands consists of three regions with the Athabasca area are the largest and closest to the surface. Under the gooey tar sands are billions of barrels of oil.

So you can ask why we have been of Middle East oil. So dependent Why do not we just stayed in the area and relied on Canada? In fact, Canada is the largest supplier of crude and refined oil to the United States, have delivered 2.1 million barrels per day in 2004. But the U.S. and other parts of the world delivered percentage will grow much larger.

The big difference between the oil sands and oil from the desert sands of the Middle East is difficulty of extraction. The oil sands process essentially involves extracting bitumen from the sand and upgrade to light crude oil. Easier said than done, because this stuff is thick and expensive to mine and extract has been. But new technologies are changing the equation and making it much more cost efficient to mine and extract from the oil sands.

Mining activities are used to produce reserves close to the surface. For oil deeper under the ground, Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) and Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) used. Other examples of new technology, and extraction methods have been burning bitumen in place of gas in order to produce steam, a solvent-assisted production technique called VAPEX and a
system that injects air into the oil well fires and to stimulate it. oil flow

In addition to the improvements in technology, higher oil prices are fueling expansion in the oil sands, and a lot of people want in. The Chinese, for example. In April, China National Offshore Oil Corp., mainly in the hands of the Chinese government, bought nearly 17% of MEG Energy Corp. for $ 122 million. The company is developing a northern Alberta project estimated 25,000 barrels of crude to pump out the oil sands in 2008. Oil And Canadian oil pipeline giant Enbridge has a preliminary agreement with PetroChina for a $ 2 billion oil pipeline anchor announced on the West Coast.

So how can you benefit from the increase in exploration, production and sale of crude oil from the oil sands of Alberta? Choose from the shares of companies investing in the area and the application of new technologies to oil more cost-efffectively pick.

Companies can then take advantage of the increasing role of the oil sands in Canada in the world of energy are Suncor (NYSE: SU), Encana (NYSE: ECA), Canadian Natural Resources NYSE: CNQ) Deer Creek Energy (DCE.TO) Total SA (NYSE: TOT), Petro Canada NYSE: PCZ), and, with the acquisition of Terasen whose pipes are well positioned to meet the growing production from the oil sands of Alberta, Children Tomorrow (transport NYSE: KMI).

And although more expensive to win from Alberta then stay out of the Middle East into account the effects of global politics, terrorism and unrest, and the cold wilderness of Northwest Canada oil become very attractive indeed.

Leon Altman creates and runs websites for investors to explore those possibilities. For more opportunities in oil and gas, as well as find other sectors, subscribe to his free Select Sectors letter to