The helicopter swooping over once- pristine spruce forests provides a close-up view of why the province of Alberta, Canada, is among the planet’s most coveted -- and contested -- petroleum hot spots.
North of Fort McMurray, a boomtown serving tens of thousands of migrant workers, Syncrude Canada Ltd.’s oil-sands mine stretches 74 square miles.
Rivals Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (386) each have bought a piece of Syncrude, one of the dozens of companies that are blasting, digging and steaming soil laden with 143 billion barrels of molasseslike crude called bitumen, Bloomberg Markets magazine reports in its January issue. Only Saudi Arabia, with 264 billion barrels, and Venezuela, with 211 billion, enjoy greater proven reserves, a BP Plc energy review found in June.
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