Will Canada be Our Salvation?

There have been occasional claims from U.S. media sources that oil from Canada, specifically oil from the Athabasca oil sands region, can be the salvation for US oil woes in the future, assuming drilling everywhere in the US doesn


In the 5-year period from 2002 through 2007, oil sands oil production increased from 660,000 b/d to 1,184,000 b/d, an average increase of about 105,000 b/d per year, but the increase from 2006 to 2007 was only 58,000 b/d. Canadian oil production through September 2008 is down about 50,000 b/d relative to the 2007 average, suggesting that there has been little or no increase in oil sands oil production in 2008. The 2002 to 2008 period has been a period of intense oil development in the Athabasca region.

In 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy/Energy Information Administration (US DOE/EIA) stated the following in their International Energy Outlook 2005 (IEO2005):