Oil sands land grab keeps on rolling

The Alberta government collected another C$100.6 million from the sale of oil sands leases at its July 12 land auction.

The deals involved 391,000 acres and pushed the sale of oil sands rights so far this year to C$1.21 billion for 1.79 million acres, easily beating the 12-month record of C$433 million set in 2005.

Combined oil sands and conventional sales this year are now C$2.31 billion for 5.96 million acres, compared with C$853 million for 3.95 million acres at the same period of 2005.

C$30 million for 7,600 acres

Western Land Services, a broker operating on behalf of an unidentified client, led the oil sands buying at C$30 million for 7,600 acres southwest of the 100,000 barrel-per-day Northern Lights project being developed by Synenco Energy in partnership with China’s Sinopec, and east of the Fort Hills project that involves Petro-Canada, UTS Energy and Teck Cominco and is due on stream in 2009 at 50,000 bpd.

Cody Kwong, an analyst with FirstEnergy Capital, said the rush to corner oil sands prospects at a time when clouds are gathering over the sector stems from the fact that the best prospects in the region have been claimed.

Greg Scott, president of Scott Land & Leasing, said the oil sands have become the “single most important oil play in the world.”

—Gary Park