As Prices Surge, Oil Giants Turn Sludge Into Gold
FORT MCMURRAY, Alberta -- In February, engineers from French oil giant Total SA fired up colossal drum boilers to generate steam that will be pumped to a depth of 300 feet under the frozen ground here. If all goes well, by May, the steam will marinate a tar-like mix of oil and sand until the crude begins to flow.
Nearby, Total will go after the oil-soaked sands closer to the surface, scraping away an ancient forest of spruce and poplars and shoveling the black soil into two-story dump trucks. Fully loaded, the trucks weigh as much as a Boeing 747. Total will then use industrial versions of giant washing machines to remove the oil, generating enough liquid waste to create vast toxic lakes.
Heavy-duty oil-extraction projects like these are turning Fort McMurray into the first great oil boom town of the 21st century. A Florida-size section of sandy soil beneath the boreal forest in this sparsely populated area of Northern Canada is loaded with bottom-of-the-barrel petroleum.
These deposits were once dismissed as "unconventional" oil that couldn't be recovered economically. But now, thanks to rising global oil prices and improved technology, most oil-industry experts count oil sands as recoverable reserves. That recalculation has vaulted Venezuela and Canada to first and third in global reserves rankings, although Venezuela's holdings in extra-heavy crude are a rough guess. Saudi Arabia is No. 2. Not including the oil sands, Canada would fall to No. 22. Led by Total, nearly every major Western oil company as well as their Chinese and Indian brethren are gearing up to go after the deposits here. In all, they plan to spend more than $70 billion in the next decade unlocking the oil from the sand.
The surging interest in Canadian oil sands is stark evidence that the world isn't about to run out of oil. Instead, it is running low on readily accessible light, sweet crude -- oil that flows like water, has few impurities and can be easily turned into gasoline. As the good stuff gets scarce, Big Oil is turning its attention and pouring money into extra-heavy crude, such as the giant deposits near Fort McMurray and another similar one in Venezuela.
But heavy oil has big economic and environmental drawbacks. It costs more to produce and takes more energy to turn into gasoline than traditional light oil. Recovering and processing Fort McMurray's heavy crude releases up to three times as much greenhouse gas as producing conventional crude. And upgrading it into refined products, such as gasoline or diesel, will require a gigantic investment to retool global refineries.
"The light crude undiscovered today is getting scarcer and scarcer," says Jean-Luc Guiziou, president of Total's Canadian operations. "We have to accept the reality of geoscience, which is that the next generation of oil resources will be heavier."
Total is making the biggest bet on heavy crude of any of the half-dozen international Western oil giants. Nearly one-fifth of its commercial reserves are in heavy-oil belts, according to oil consultant Wood Mackenzie, a larger portion than any of its Western rivals. Its stockpile of heavy-oil reserves is second only to that of Exxon Mobil Corp., a company that is more than twice as large. Total has spent years developing the complex technology needed to extract oil from tar sands in the frigid environment of Northern Canada. So much heat is required to separate the oil from the tar that Total briefly floated the idea of building a nuclear-power plant there.
The rush into the oil sands also has turned a longstanding belief about fossil fuels and the environment on its head. For years, environmentalists have argued that higher gasoline prices would be good for the Earth because paying more at the pump would promote conservation. Instead, higher energy prices have unleashed a bevy of heavy-oil projects that will increase emissions of carbon dioxide, suspected of causing global warming.
"As oil prices have gone up, you get this increased desire to get out onto the new frontiers of oil," says Marlo Raynolds, executive director of the Calgary-based Pembina Institute, an energy and environment think tank. "We're now getting into the dirtiest sources of oil anywhere." To be sure, rising energy prices have spawned more interest in renewable fuel sources, but those investments pale in comparison to what's going on here.
Canada, which exports more oil to the U.S. than any other country, already is having trouble meeting its pledge to cut CO2 emissions largely because of its mushrooming heavy-oil production. By 2015, Canada's Fort McMurray region, population 61,000, is expected to emit more greenhouse gases than Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people.
Canada's northern forest contains at least 174 billion barrels of recoverable heavy oil, equivalent to five years' supply for the planet, according to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board. Venezuela has perhaps even more in the Orinoco River delta. By comparison, Saudi Arabia has about 260 billion barrels of more traditional crude, or 8? years' global supply, according to the Energy Information Administration, the statistical arm of the federal Department of Energy. Heavy oil also is being produced in the Middle East, the Caspian Sea, Brazil and even in California's San Joaquin Valley.
In northern Alberta, the oil-sands boom is remaking the landscape. The mining operations have clear-cut thousands of acres of trees and dug 200-foot-deep pits. The region is dotted with large man-made lakes filled with leftover waste from the mining operations. To chase off migratory birds, propane cannons go off at random intervals and scarecrows stand guard on floating barrels.
Alberta's energy minister, Greg Melchin, says oil-sands development creates a minimal environmental disturbance that is outweighed by the opportunities and jobs created. "It's worth it. There is a cost to it, but the benefits are substantially greater," he said.
Environmental groups are increasingly critical of the government's reluctance to regulate the oil sands. "The pace of development is outstripping our ability to manage the environmental issue," says Mr. Raynolds of the Pembina Institute. "Our unwritten energy policy is dig it up and sell it as fast as possible."
The remarkable properties of Fort McMurray's oil sands have been known for centuries. Native tribes mixed the tar-like substance with tree sap to waterproof their canoes. In the 1960s, companies now known as Suncor Energy Inc. and Syncrude Canada Ltd., a consortium of oil companies, opened oil-sands mines in the area. Both operations stumbled through periods of low oil prices but are now rapidly expanding.
When oil was trading at $12 a barrel in the late 1990s, Big Oil had little interest in oil sands. But surging energy prices have made heavy-oil investments significantly more attractive. It costs about $25 a barrel to produce crude from Canada's oil sands, an acceptable cost when oil is trading for $60 a barrel. By comparison, it can cost as little as about $5 a barrel to produce crude in the Middle East and $15 in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
For Paris-based Total, the world's fifth-largest publicly traded energy company by market capitalization, the oil sands play to its strengths. Total had its roots as a refiner rather than an exploration and production company. Oil sands were easy to find but hard to process.
Total's first foray into heavy oil was in Venezuela's Orinoco belt. In 1997, the company's giant $4.2 billion Sincor project there began producing market-grade crude. Sincor, which Total owns with Norway's Statoil ASA and Petróleos de Venezuela SA, now produces 180,000 barrels of oil a day.
The same year, Total opened an office in Calgary to determine if a similar investment was warranted near Fort McMurray. It was soon clear to Total engineers brought in from Sincor that Canadian oil sands were more technically difficult than Venezuela's heavy-oil belt. The key difference: The heavy oil in Venezuela was quite warm and flowed easily, albeit slowly, while in Canada the oil-sand mixture had the look and consistency of tar-like Play-Doh. But Canada was attractive because it offered a haven from politically unstable oil hotspots.
In November 1999, Total teamed up with the financially struggling Gulf Canada Resources Ltd. on a promising project called Surmont. Gulf Canada was later acquired by Conoco Inc. and is now part of Houston-based ConocoPhillips.
For Total, sorting out the mechanics of producing this heaviest of oils fell on the shoulders of Mr. Guiziou, a French earth scientist who had worked his way into management from his first assignment studying the geology of Argentina. In 2001, when he was being considered for the Canadian job, he flew into Fort McMurray to see what the oil sands were about. Having worked in the industry for years, he was accustomed to the look and feel of oil fields. But when he visited Syncrude's mine, where giant cranes scooped up the oil-soaked earth in buckets capable of carrying 100 tons, he was flabbergasted. "It was another world," the 44-year-old Mr. Guiziou says.
In some places near Fort McMurray, the oil sands are close to the surface and can be mined. But at Surmont, located southeast of Fort McMurray, the oil sands are 1,200 feet underground, far too deep for a mining operation. The partners in the venture needed to find a way to get the oil.
The solution was steam. In 1978, Roger Butler, an engineer with Imperial Oil Ltd., an independent company majority-owned by Exxon Mobil, hit on the idea of drilling two wells that start off vertically, then slowly bend until they are horizontal and located one on top of the other. The top well would pump steam into the reservoir while the other pumped oil out.
Surmont was to be Total's and Conoco's first venture with the technology, so in late 1997 they started small with a 1,000-barrel-a-day pilot. They pumped steam down a pipe laced with millions of tiny slits, each no wider than the thickness of a piece of paper. The initial results were encouraging but expanding into a full-scale project took several more years.
One pressing issue: Several companies, including Paramount Resources Ltd., were producing natural gas from a shallow underground zone above the oil sands. Total and its partner convinced an Alberta regulatory body that the gas project threatened the much larger oil deposit. The theory was that if the gas were allowed to be pumped out, the steam chamber would lose pressure and Surmont would have to be scrapped. In a landmark ruling, an Alberta regulatory body ordered 146 gas wells shut off in 2000.
In December 2003, Total and ConocoPhillips decided to build the first phase of Surmont. The steaming is slated to begin later this year, with production expected to grow to 27,000 barrels a day next year. Future expansions could bring it to 200,000 barrels a day -- a good-size oil field but not the biggest in the area.
At Surmont, Total was merely an investor with ConocoPhillips and its predecessor companies operating the project. Last year, the French company went from being an investor to a full-fledged participant in the oil-sands boom.
In September, it bought Deer Creek Energy Ltd. for $1.6 billion, acquiring its only significant asset: a giant oil-sands project called Joslyn north of Fort McMurray. Once fully developed, Joslyn is expected to yield 200,000 barrels a day for decades. Total plans to produce oil from Joslyn by both mining and by shooting steam underground.
Becoming an operator, Mr. Guiziou needed to confront environmental problems as Total expanded its heavy-oil holdings in Canada. Mining oil sands generates enormous volumes of liquid waste that are stored in toxic lakes that have concentrations of naturally occurring naphthenic acid, an odorless liquid used to help paint dry quickly. The prospect of cleaning up these lakes is "daunting," the Canadian National Energy Board, a federal regulatory body, noted in a 2004 report. "There is currently no demonstrated means to reclaim fluid fine tailings," it said.
Since the lakes are likely to be around for years to come, Mr. Guiziou is working on a plan that will result in smaller lakes. He hopes to install a new technology at Joslyn that will suck out water and leave a smaller volume of waste laced with metals before it is dumped in the lakes. But he said the technology "needs to be proved at the industrial scale." Total expects to conduct a test later this year at a neighboring facility.
Total is also trying to figure out ways to curb greenhouse-gas emissions at its Fort McMurray facilities by using pure oxygen instead of air in its combustion engines. The company is running a pilot project in Lacq, France, to capture carbon dioxide in exhaust flues more effectively. If the technology proves workable, it could be used in Fort McMurray as well.
Despite the environmental concerns, there is a strong economic incentive for Alberta's free-market-oriented government to let oil-sands development gallop ahead. Alberta added nearly 26,000 jobs in resource extraction in the past two years. That 25% jump helped drive the province's unemployment rate down to 3.1%, a 30-year low, according to the government. For the first time, every Albertan received a 400 Canadian-dollar ($340) check from the government earlier this year from an unexpected fiscal surplus.
Total and other oil companies are continuing to announce new oil-sand projects and shovel money into the region. Earlier this month, Chevron Corp. said it planned to spend "billions" to turn 75,000 acres into a 100,000-barrel-a day field. And last week, Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it had spent nearly $400 million to lease 219,000 acres west of Fort McMurray, shattering records for public-land leases.
In February, Total moved quickly to file the regulatory permit for Joslyn to move to the front of a growing queue of projects. With all the development, everything is in short supply, including steel, energy to power the projects, fresh water and skilled construction workers.
Some projects could end up being delayed for years. "It's like you've got one door frame and the Three Stooges trying to get through at the same time," said Tom Ebbern, executive managing director of Tristone Capital, a Calgary-based investment adviser. "Without a doubt, we can become the next Saudi Arabia but it will take 10 years longer than the market thinks."
阿尔伯塔小镇迎来新“黑金”时代
加拿大阿尔伯塔省，二月的麦克莫里堡，来自法国石油巨头道达尔公司(Total SA)的工程师们启动了巨大的汽包锅炉。锅炉生成的蒸汽将被压入这片冻土带300英尺深的地下。如果一切进展顺利，五月份之前，一种像沥青一样的油、砂混合物就将在蒸汽作用下缓慢解冻、融化，直到最终变成可以流动的原油。
就在不远处，道达尔将在接近土层表面的地方寻找这种浸润著石油的砂子。他们会铲掉原始森林里生长著的云杉和杨树，然后将黑色的泥土装上约有两层楼高的自卸卡车运走。如果满载，整个卡车的重量可与一辆波音747媲美。随后，道达尔会用巨型工业淘洗设备将油份与砂子分离，这个过程将产生大量的有毒废液，足以形成湖泊一样大小的渣池。
这种重油开采业务正在将麦克莫里堡变成二十一世纪第一个因石油而繁荣的小城。这座人烟稀少的加拿大北部城市附近的北方针叶林下面埋藏著有佛罗里达州那么大面积的油砂带。
这些油砂带一度被视为“非传统型”油资源，人们认为它们从经济上不具备开采价值。但是现在，随著全球油价的不断高企和技术的改善，石油业大部分专家认为，它们是可以利用的资源。
这种新认识使委内瑞拉和加拿大成为全球石油储量第一大和第三大国，虽然现在对委内瑞拉的超重质原油储量还只有粗略估计。
沙特阿拉伯的石油储量排名第二。如果不计入油砂，加拿大的排名将降至第22位。现在，几乎每一家西方大型石油公司都蜂拥到加拿大找油，道达尔更是一马当先。中国和印度企业也不甘落后。据预计，所有这些石油企业未来十年将在这里投资700多亿美元开采油砂。
人们对加拿大油砂的莫大兴趣显示地球尚无石油枯竭之虞，只不过容易获取的轻质低硫原油在日渐减少。轻质低硫原油流起来像水一样，杂质很少，可以很容易地提炼出汽油。随著轻质低硫原油资源日渐枯竭，石油巨头们纷纷转向超重质原油，麦克莫里堡附近地区和委内瑞拉一个类似地区蕴藏的油砂就属于这类油质。
但重油在经济效益和环境方面都有缺点。除开采成本高昂之外，它在加工成汽油时也比传统的轻质油耗费更多能源。开采和加工麦克莫里堡的重油所产生的温室气体是传统原油的三倍。要将重油进一步提炼成汽油或柴油等成品油需要提炼商花费巨大投资改造生产设施。
道达尔加拿大分部总裁让?卢克?吉佐(Jean-Luc Guiziou)说，当今能发现的轻质原油越来越少。我们不得不接受地球科学带给我们的这样一个现实，那就是下一代石油资源在品质方面会越来越差，越来越“重”。
在五、六家国际性西方石油公司里，道达尔在重油上下的赌注是最大的。据石油咨询机构Wood Mackenzie提供的数据，目前其约有五分之一的商业储备在重油区，这个比例比其他任何一家西方竞争对手都高。它的重油储量仅次于埃克森美孚(Exxon Mobil Corp.)，但其公司规模只有埃克森美孚的二分之一左右。道达尔已花费数年时间研究在加拿大北部的严寒气候下从油砂里提取石油的复杂技术。由于分离油、砂需要大量热量，道达尔还想出了在油田建造核电站的办法。
趋之若鹜的油砂开采大军改变了人们长期以来对传统矿物燃料和环境之间关系的认识。多年来，环保主义者一直认为，高油价对地球环境是件好事，因为这能促使人们节约能源。但事实却是，油价高企却催生了大量重油项目，这些项目只会增加二氧化碳气体的排放，而二氧化碳被视为全球变暖的罪魁祸首。
加拿大能源和环保研究机构Pembina Institute执行董事马罗?雷诺兹(Marlo Raynolds)说，随著油价上升，人们对寻找新的石油储备的愿望也在提升。现在人们到处都在寻找重油。的确，高油价激发了人们对再生能源的兴趣，但这方面的投资与油砂开采项目投资相比却也只能甘拜下风。
伴随著雨后春笋般的重油生产项目，加拿大发现它已很难遵守有关减少二氧化碳排放的承诺。加拿大是美国最大的石油供应国。据预计，到2015年之前，目前人口仅61,000的麦克莫里堡地区所排放的温室气体将超过有540万人口的丹麦。
据阿尔伯塔省能源和公用事业局(Alberta Energy and Utilities Board)提供的数字，加拿大北方森林地区蕴藏著至少1,740亿桶可开采重油，这个数字相当于全世界5年所需的供应量。委内瑞拉在奥里诺科三角洲的储量可能超过这个数字。据美国能源部情报署(Energy Information Administration)的资料，沙特的原油储量大约有2,600亿桶，是全球年供应量的8.5倍。除加拿大和委内瑞拉外，中东、里海、巴西甚至加利福尼亚圣华金河谷也出产重油。
在阿尔伯塔北部，油砂热正在改变当地的面貌。开采导致数千公顷森林被砍伐，到处是200英尺深的井坑。该地区布满了大型人工“湖”──渣池，池子里是开采作业留下的废液。为驱赶候鸟，丙烷炮不时会发出轰响，池子里漂浮的油桶上还立著“稻草人”。
阿尔伯塔能源部长格里格?麦尔钦(Greg Melchin)说，油砂开发带来了一些环境方面的问题，但同时也带来了更重要的发展机遇和就业机会。他说，这是值得的。是要付出代价，但收获要大得多。
环保组织对政府在油砂行业监管上不作为的批评声越来越大。Pembina Institute的雷诺兹说，发展的速度超过了我们解决环境问题的能力。我们不成文的能源政策是尽快把油开采出来再卖出去。
麦克莫里堡蕴藏大量油砂的事实几个世纪前人们就知道了。当地部落里的人曾将这种像沥青一样的东西与树汁混合起来作独木舟的防水材料。Suncor Energy Inc.及石油联合企业Syncrude Canada Ltd.两家公司上世纪六十年代就来到该地区开采油砂。这些公司在低油价时代几乎难以为继，不过现在终于开始迅速发展起来。
九十年代末原油只卖每桶12美元时，大型石油生产商对油砂根本没兴趣。但能源价格飞涨已经让重油项目的投资变得非常有吸引力了。加拿大油砂矿每桶原油的生产成本高达25美元左右，但与每桶60美元的市场售价相比就很容易接受了。再做一个比较，中东石油的生产成本只有每桶5美元，墨西哥湾深海油田的成本也只有每桶15美元。
道达尔总部设在巴黎，是全球市值第五大的上市能源企业。开采油砂矿正好是它的强项。道达尔起家时就是一家炼油企业，而不是石油勘探和开采企业，而油砂又恰好容易找到但难以加工。
道达尔的第一个重油项目是委内瑞拉奥里诺科的Sincor项目。1997年，这个耗资42亿美元之巨的油田开始生产达到市场交易等级的原油。Sincor由道达尔和挪威的Statoil ASA以及委内瑞拉的Petroleos de Venezuela SA共同拥有，目前日产原油18万桶。
同年，道达尔在加拿大卡尔加里成立了办事处，考察是否值得在麦克莫里堡附近进行类似的投资。在Sincor工作过的道达尔工程师们很快发现，加拿大油砂的分离要比委内瑞拉重油分离的技术难度大多了。关键的不同之处就在于：委内瑞拉重油温度适中、流动起来虽然很慢但较为轻松，但加拿大的油砂混合物就像沥青色的培乐多彩泥(Play-Doh)，粘稠厚重。但加拿大自有诱人之处：政局稳定。
1999年11月，道达尔与当时财力紧张的Gulf Canada Resources Ltd.合作，共同开发前景光明的萨蒙特项目。Gulf Canada后来被Conoco Inc.收购，现在是休斯敦康菲石油公司(ConocoPhillips)的一部分。
对道达尔来说，找出办法生产这种“最重的油”的任务就落在了吉佐肩上。这位法国地球科学家当年的第一项任务就是研究阿根廷地质状况，由此一步步升迁进入道达尔的管理层。2001年，公司考虑让他领导加拿大业务时，他曾乘机飞往麦克莫里堡亲眼目睹一下油砂的样子。浸淫业内多年，他对形形色色的油田都很熟悉了，但看到Syncrude正在开采的矿脉还是惊得目瞪口呆：巨型起吊机一次能挖出100吨的吊斗里满是含有石油的砂土。“简直匪夷所思，”现年44岁的吉佐说。
麦克莫里堡附近有些地方的油砂矿接近地表，可以用采矿方式开采。但在麦克莫里堡东南部的萨蒙特，油砂深入地表以下1,200英尺，采矿设备鞭长莫及。合资双方需要另找办法挖出油砂。
这个办法就是蒸汽。早在1978年，埃克森美孚持有多数股权的独立企业Imperial Oil Ltd.的工程师罗杰?巴特勒(Roger Butler)就想出了一个办法：同时开挖两条竖井，然后慢慢转弯，直到二者平行，一口井在另一口的垂直上方。从上面那口井里用泵压入蒸汽，另一口井就可以用泵抽出油砂了。
道达尔和康菲石油公司的合资企业准备在萨蒙特率先使用这项技术。因此，在1997年年底，他们开始试验性开采一处日产1,000桶原油的油井。他们向一口井里压入蒸汽，井壁上布满了数百万极其微小的裂隙，每一处都薄得像纸。实验的结果令人振奋，但要全面扩大到整个项目尚需数年。
眼下的紧迫问题之一：Paramount Resources Ltd.等几家公司正在这里开采天然气，而天然气蕴藏带正处在油砂矿上方。道达尔与合作伙伴一起说服了阿尔伯塔省监管机构，让他们相信天然气项目会给规模更大的油田构成威胁。道理是这样的：如果天然气被采出，开采油砂的蒸汽井就会失掉上方的压力，萨蒙特只能被废弃。2000年，阿尔伯塔省监管机构做出了一项重要裁定，关闭了那里的146口天然气井。
2003年12月，道达尔和康菲石油公司决定展开萨蒙特项目第一期工程。预计今年下半年开始投产，明年的日产量估计能达到27,000桶，将来逐步增加到日产20万桶。对油田来说，这个产量规模尚可，但还不是该地区最大的。
在萨蒙特，道达尔以前只是一位投资者，与康菲石油公司及其前身一起经营这个项目。但在去年，道达尔从投资者迅速转变为油砂热潮的全面参与者。
去年9月，道达尔斥资16亿美元收购了Deer Creek Energy Ltd.，就因为看中了后者在麦克莫里堡北部Joslyn的大型油砂田。一旦进入全面开采阶段，这个油田就有望维持数十年日产20万桶原油的水平。道达尔准备同时采用矿井开采和蒸汽泵压两种方式在这里开采原油。
既然道达尔改变身份成了生产商，扩大了在加拿大的重油生产项目，吉佐就需要处理环保难题了。开采油砂会同时产生大量废液，汇聚成湖，含有大量有毒的环烷酸──用来使油漆快干的无嗅液体。加拿大国家能源局(National Energy Board)在2004年的报告中指出，清理这些渣池的前景令人“不寒而栗”。“目前尚无已经证实的方法能回收清理这些废液。”
不过，这些渣池很可能还要好几年才会形成，吉佐正在积极规划一套方案，让渣池变的小一些。他希望在Joslyn采用新技术，尽量吸收水分，让排入渣池的含有金属的废液少一些。但他也说，新技术“需要在工业规模上进行验证”。道达尔准备今年下半年在附近的开采设备中试用这项技术。
道达尔也在尽力尝试各种措施，力求减少麦克莫里堡生产设施排放的温室气体，这里的内燃机使用纯氧而不是普通空气。道达尔还在法国Lacq开展一个试验项目，更有效地捕捉排气管排出的二氧化碳。如果这项技术可行，麦克莫里堡的设施也会采用。
尽管有种种环保问题，崇尚自由市场理念的阿尔伯塔省政府还是被更大的经济利益所诱惑，让油砂开发项目迅猛发展。政府数据显示，两年来，阿尔伯塔省新增近26,000个资源开采领域的职位，增幅高达25%，该省失业率因此降至30年低点3.1%。有生以来第一次，阿尔伯塔省的公民收到了政府寄送的每人400加元(340美元)的支票，因为政府财政出现了意外盈余。
道达尔和其他大型石油企业不断宣布新的油砂项目开工，源源不断地投入巨资。本月初，雪佛龙公司(Chevron Corp.)宣布准备斥资“数十亿”，将一块占地75,000英亩的矿带开发成日产10万桶原油的油田。上周，荷兰皇家壳牌有限公司(Royal Dutch Shell PLC)表示，已经投资近4亿美元租赁了麦克莫里堡西部一块219,000英亩的土地，一举打破了当地公有土地的租赁纪录。
今年2月，道达尔迅速行动，为Joslyn项目申请政府审批，走到了一长串待批项目的前列。开采工作热火朝天，所有材料的供应都开始短缺：钢铁、设备动力所需的能源、清洁水，还有技术熟练的建筑工人。
有些项目可能最终会被推迟数年。“就好像只有一扇门，但有三个伙计都想挤进来，”卡尔加里投资顾问公司Tristone Capital的执行董事汤姆?艾伯恩(Tom Ebbern)说。“毋庸置疑，我们会变成下一个沙特阿拉伯，但将比市场的预期晚上十年。”
