A technical, economic, and legal assessment of North American heavy oil, oil sands, and oil shale resources: In response to Energy Policy Act of 2005 Section 369(p)

Against the backdrop of world population growth, rapid economic expansion in the world's most populous countries, challenging political climates in many oil-producing nations, and the specter of climate change, worldwide energy consumption is projected to increase from the 2004 level of just over 400 quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTUs) to over 700 quadrillion BTUs in 2030. With 35% of the world's energy needs being met by petroleum in 2003, petroleum is expected to remain a dominant player in worldwide energy markets for the foreseeable future. Consequently, world economic development will continue to be significantly impacted by the cost of oil. In the United States, energy policy is again focused on evaluating domestic energy resources and their potential to achieve greater energy independence and reduce future energy crises. Unconventional hydrocarbon resources, including heavy oil, oil sands, and oil shale, represent a significant North American resource. Estimates of proven conventional oil reserves worldwide are 1.0 trillion barrels with an additional 1.7 trillion barrels of possible/undiscovered reserves. Canadian oil sands reserves are estimated at 1.7 trillion barrels with 174 billion barrels recoverable using proven current technologies. A conservative estimate of worldwide in-place oil shale reserves is 2.9 trillion barrels, with 2.0 trillion barrels of this resource located in the United States. The Rand report puts the range of oil recovery from shale at 0.5-1.1 trillion barrels depending on the percent accessible and recoverable. The purpose of this report is to assess unconventional North American resources, summarize current technologies for extracting and processing the resources, identify the issues which will affect the economic viability of various resource development schemes, evaluate the socioeconomic costs to communities and states impacted by such development, and analyze the regulatory and environmental climate in which the resource development will operate. In addition to this written report, the Utah Heavy Oil Program (UHOP) of the Institute for Clean and Secure Energy at the University of Utah has been commissioned to build a repository to hold information relevant to the resources of heavy oil, oil shaleand oil sands in North America. UHOP has developed a map server interface to deliver dynamic maps and to explore the UHOP repository in a geospatial setting. All that is required for users to interface with the UHOP map server is a fast internet connection and a compatible web browser. the current URL for the UHOP map server is http://map.heavyoil.utah.edu/website/uhop_ims.