And to be expected.

That said not the case for tar oil sands and new technology that makes them and the Edmonton reserves both available and secure from Middle Eastern influence or mischief! Edmonton,e.g., is allegedly large enough to rival the entire M.E. reserves.

And just needs something resembling a heat source like MSR thorium ought to be deployed at the lowest point of the reserve to allow the heat to percolate on upward and make the entire reserve eventually available!?

Time the west got total independence from OPEC and their Rusian partner in crime! And only available if we use MSR thorium as a principle energy source and use it to make Edmonton available or better yet, convert inexhaustible seawater into a medley of alternative hydrocarbons, using tried and proven technology to forever cut the umbilical oil cord with foreign nations and weaponised oil!

All current oil reserves started lif as algae, some of which are as much as 60% and under optimised conditions can double their growth or population numbers, every 24 hours. And can be grown in recycled effluent in large clear plastic pipes as an alternative source of income from land not suitable for any form of agriculture.

After that, it's child's play to make hydrogen from water via the catalytic cracking of the water molecule.

Modern technology and closed-cycle systems make this yet another safer and far more sustainable outcome than being tied to other nation's weaponised oil!

Cracking the hydrocarbon more fraught!
Alan B.

Footnote.
Some algae are, to reiterate, up to 60% oil! And under optimised conditions can double their bodyweight and oil content every 24 hours! And child's play to extract.

Some of the algae are extracted from the flow via rotting filtration, sun-dried then crushed. to extract the, ready to use, diesel of jet fuel component.

The ex-crush material could possibly be sent to biodigesters to be converted to methane gas, which can be passed through a simple scrub and proven catalytic conversion process, where a few of the hydrogen atoms are carved off and if desired collected, the rest then collected as storable liquid methanol, which is an excellent and cleaner substitute for both petrol and avgas.

All of these processors can be conducted on land not suited to agriculture, the borrowed effluent water after it has given up its nutrient load can be passed through activated carbon to make it suitable and safe for, cash crop, intensive, under glass irrigation!

All of which can and should generate positive cash flow when the Algae population and tonnages are large enough to support a 24-hour production cycle.

Know any large deindustrialised cities That would be served by a large sustainable industrial oil or alternative fuel production?. Most of the rust belt mid-west perhaps? Incidentally, all food waste and organic waste can be added to the biodigesters to increase the methanol production.

Moreover, most diesel engines will run as well n compressed methane and produce far less particulate material and as much as 40% less CO2!
Alan B.

Rotting filtration should be read as rotating! Apologies for "extraordinarily helpful" Grammarly word correction.
Alan B

The sooner the west lever's Russian hands of their oil/gas supplies paradigms, the better. Given Russia is a principal player in weaponising these commodities and neither America or Australia are served by their nationals serving this interest as manipulated puppets with a few dollars.

Gas can be made at home and in every domicile, just by putting all their biological waste and food scraps into household bio-digesters, where twin systems turn most of it, inside smell-free closed-cycle systems into methane gas

. And every American or Australian family would make enough to power their domiciles 24/7. And with food scraps/wastage added, create a salable surplus! If this gas is also scrubbed and then fed into ceramic fuel cells, the saleable surplus exceeds 50%!

And creates endless free hot water as a byproduct.

The exhaust product of the latter system is mostly pristine water vapour and as such aids dealing with climate change issues without tanking the economy or household discretionary spending! Like runaway oil prices do and have!

Yes, the total package is quite costly if economies of scale and state actors are not involved but given they are and it is? costs can be brought way down and financed by stock stand normal electricity (cash cow) payments!

Surplus energy, some of it can be used to charge electric vehicles overnight!

The mandated roll out of the above would quite massively resuscitate the steel industry and MSR thorium as the industrial power source would help reduce installation costs into the bargain, given the amount of new steel that would be required and for several, economic recovery decades. And should be done ASAP, with or without Mr Putin's personal approval or PERMISSION!
Alan B.

This article reads pretty much like a global warming bit of bull dust.

Full of "could" may be, "perhaps".

When the author can say "WILL", & not monkey around with wishful thinking, I will take it more seriously.

Hasbeen, How in heaven's name can you equate an article on shale oil production with some bogus climate change theory or conspiracy?

That said, one doesn't have to be deaf, blind and brain dead not to know that climate change is very real and responsible for the worst and hottest driest drought in living memory!

I know you're a motoring enthusiast, a sailor and all that!
And living in a self-made time warp bubble where nothing bad ever happens to a fossilised Hasbeen or Hasbeen's immediate/perfect family!

But even someone with as few grey cells, has to know, you can't get what we are getting during a waning phase of the sun! And we've been having one since the mid-seventies. (NASA)

Go west Old man and just take a good long hard look around and talk to a few drought-ravaged farmers! And stop conflating an informed article on shale oil production with some climate change conspiracy?

That sort of paranoia is indicative of early dementia.
Alan B.