Word is coming out of the discovery of a truly massive, shale oil field in Australia that's expected to produce from 233 upwards to 400-billion barrels of crude oil. That's crude oil, not bitumen.
Even at the lowest range, 233-billion barrels considerably exceeds Canada's 175-billion barrel petro-reserves, most of which are high-cost, high-carbon bitumen.
As Richard over at Canadian Trends points out, the recent accord with Iran is compounding the recent slump in WTI crude, magnifying Alberta's "carbon bubble" problems.
What impact will the Coober Pedy bonanza have on Canada's high risk energy resources? You may think back to when Athabasca, on the verge of imminent development, was abandoned cold when conventional oil was discovered at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.
Australia has grown enormously wealthy peddling its vast coal reserves to China and it's inconceivable that climate-change denier and newly-minted prime minister Tony Abbott will hesitate to get his country's shale oil sailing off to China also.
It's time for this country to take a sober look at our exposure - economically and environmentally - from our tenuous bitumen bounty. Coober Pedy could easily cause Athabasca to blow up in our face.
