Ernie Montague

The Long Case for Canadian Oil Sands Trust

oilsand production at Syncrude and the "lake"

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The Long Case for Canadian Oil Sands Trust

The "reclamation"... looks like a sand pile planted with vegetation. It looks NOTHING like the wild land that was there before. And has no ecology that resembles what was there before.

The Athabasca is not an endless water supply. It has dwindled enormously in the last thirty years due to less rain and snow. Add on the oil industry production and the picture gets far worse.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the issue is real and huge.

A report says:

Summer flows and winter low flows in the Athabasca have declined by nearly 30% since 1970 and could fall by more than 60% by 2050 if the trend continues, he says.

If oil sands production triples to 3 million bbl/day by 2015, as predicted, industry would require 15 cubic meters of water per second, more than allowed by the critical red-zone threshold, the report says.

In other words, the production will diminish the river to levels where it kills the fish population and denies people who depend on the river WATER.

Interesting User 44226 does not mention the enormous amounts of waste water left over that are stored in perpetuity. Kinda like storing the water you use to wash your dishes. FOREVER.

The Long Case for Canadian Oil Sands Trust

As always the potential of Canadian OIl Sands ( there are many plays here) is ameliorated by the huge environmental problems. We are not talking "strip mine", we are talking hundreds of square miles eventually stripped bare and dug out, and then filled back up with the processed sand. In order to do this, huge huge huge quantities of water and natural gas are needed. Probably ALL of Canada's NG output will be used in the future, if not today. The sticking point is that the Athabasca river is already drawn on to beyond capacity and the tailing ponds (waste water dumps) are already huge. The largest earthen dam in the world holds a Canadian oil sand tailing pond. It is 13 miles long, and the heavy metals are bleeding into the water shed and creating a cancer pool in a nearby community. No doubt the OIl Sands will continue to be heavily developed. Whether Canadians have the stomach and water to replace Saudi Arabia is questionable. Oil sands require huge amounts of energy and water.

Petrohawk and Chesapeake Fly on Haynesville Shale News

ripping up a negative 3 points each as of 10 AM

High-Yield Canadian Royalty Trusts: What's the Catch?

IF you want to write off the canadian tax as an offset, it can only be done in proportion to the amount of depreciation of physical assets, a difficult calculation.

High-Yield Canadian Royalty Trusts: What's the Catch?

There are a number of issues here. Taxation of Canroys by Ca can be deducted as a foreign tax credit, which means you deduct it from your income..... It is not a tax offset. You don't get to reduce the amount of TAX you pay by the same amount, you reduce the amount you are TAXED ON.

Paperwork on ALL canroys can be difficult. If you buy and sell you need to keep track of ALL of your transactions and adjust the basis according to your return of capital in dividend, length of holding, and number of shares. If you buy one, hold it, don't buy and sell for dividends, you will get a surprise on the tax paperwork. Further the dividend can consist of dividend ( qualfied) and return of capital. Some trusts, like PWE have been paying out 100% dividend, some have not.

So buy and hold, beware of the tax implications of multiple trades, and keep track of ALL dividends, as your sale price will reflect a capital gain that must be adjusted by adding the return of capital dividends to the basis.

I hold PWE and HTE. The PWE is naked, the HTE is hedged with calls sold against the position. I also hold SJT ( US trust) and just sold my HGT ( the appreciation was over three years of dividends, and I could not justify holding onto a large long term capital gain.

Petrohawk: A Play on Appreciating Natural Gas Prices

Having owned energy stocks through several market dips and highs, I would not think of buying Petrohawk at its current price. Another stock to beware is HGT, Hugoton Royalty Trust, which has had a stellar runup and reached lovely heights. Don't buy into energy on a massive upswing unless you plan on holding for a longggggg time.

Is Trading for a Living Wise?

Never have paid attention to that idiot, other than to do what he says not to do.

Airlines Up on Lower Oil, Financials Next?

Gee, friday oil closed at $135. These pronouncements about the decline in oil prices seem a bit premature. When it goes down $20 a barrel in two weeks, then there may be some substance. When oil is still flirting with all time highs, they are just stupid.

A Second Try for Evergreen Solar

As with most technical "analysis" yes, it looks good unless things get bad, in which case it looks bad, but it will probably go up unless it goes down.

What Can the Saudis Do to Bring Down Oil Prices?

ELECTRIC cars and hybrid trucks. Good idea, as electricity grows on trees.

Saudi Oil Meeting Scenarios

Will oil prices drop due to this strategy? Probably. 1.5m barrels a day of light is a lot of oil. The interesting thing is the plan to inject 4.5 m barrels a day of water into Ghrawar. That almost doubles the current water injection rate, and is pretty much defacto proof that Ghrawar's ability to produce is in decline and will, in the next few years, decline yet more rapidly. Not a pretty picture. Partiuclarly for a field that once produced huge amounts of oil with very little water cut and no injection, and that today need water injection greater than its daily oil production and is running up to 60% water cut.

Oil Hits $140: What Could Trigger a Reverse?

shale and oil sands are enormously destructive in oil production. The waste and destruction is shocking.

Coastal drilling should start yesterday.

Another buck in gas prices should produce a drop of at least a million barrels a day in gas consumption, which should have an effect of prices.

Penn West Energy Distributes High Income Rate to Shareholders

One of the few holdings I have that I will hold till the day I die.

Drilling in ANWR: What's Not to Like?

There are no steel cables used to transmit electricity. Older ones are copper, newer ones are ACSR ( Aluminum Cable ( most of the cable), Steel Reinforced). Transmission loss is not the problem. The chances or removing the entire ACSR infrastructure to replace with some high tech superconductor are negligible. The cost would be huge.


Anwar does not have enough oil to do more than lower oil prices for a few years. It is NOT a huge field.

Oil sands are so INCREDIBLY polluting during oil production, and so water and energy wasting that you simply have to research them to understand the low likelihood of ever reaching Saudi levels of production. Unless you can find several new rivers in Canada that are not there now, oil sand production is limited by water supply.