In situ: the next generation for oil production
Oil sands projects are groundbreaking in the attempts to reach ‘inaccessable’ crude
Canada's oil sands can rightly be described as the world’s largest engineering play, and a testing ground for new technologies and ideas to recover more than 1 trillion barrels of previously inaccessible crude. The challenge has always been to improve recovery factors from what was previously considered unrecoverable oil. More than 80% of the oil-sands resource will be developed in situ, or in the reservoir, though that method only accounts for half of Alberta’s present oil-sands production of 1.9 million barrels per day (b/d). The oil sands are different from conventional oil, in that the bitumen does not move of its own accord. An external energy source is required to mobilise inert bitume
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Gas is a central pillar of Colombia’s energy system, but declining production poses a significant challenge, and LNG will be increasingly needed as a stopgap. A recent major offshore gas discovery offers hope, but policy improvements are also required, Camilo Morales, secretary general of Naturgas, the Colombian gas association, tells Petroleum Economist
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The continent’s inventories were already depleted before conflict erupted in the Middle East, causing prices to spike ahead of the crucial summer refilling season
4 March 2026
The US president has repeatedly promised to lower gasoline prices, but this ambition conflicts with his parallel aim to increase drilling and could be upended by his war against Iran
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With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed following US-Israel strikes and Iran’s retaliatory escalation, Fujairah has become the region’s critical pressure release valve—and is now under serious threat
