Canada's missing barrels
The majors have carried billions of barrels of oil sands reserves on their books. The price downturn is making them disappear
This era of lower-for-longer oil prices has raised a thorny question for Canada's oil sands producers: at what point does oil in the ground cease to exist on the balance sheet? The answer is when the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) says so. The question became more acute after ExxonMobil was forced to write off 3.5bn barrels of its oil sands reserves in its annual 10-K filing. It amounts to the entire booked reserve base of its Kearl oil sands mine that was commissioned in 2013 at a cost of C$12.9bn ($9.81bn) and another 200m barrels of bitumen at its Cold Lake in situ project. The oil sands writedown slashed ExxonMobil's proved reserves by around 20%. ConocoPhillips followed suit, c
Also in this section
3 June 2025
China will play a huge role in driving gas demand, with its Qatar partnership crucial to this growth amid global structural challenges
3 June 2025
Datacentres to drive demand for gas and position the fuel as more than just a bridging solution
2 June 2025
It is time to acknowledge that the US-Saudi Arabia nexus is driving a fundamental shift in OPEC strategy
2 June 2025
More than anything else, weak Chinese gas demand is providing relief to EU consumers, but it is uncertain how long this relief will last
