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
15 May 2025
Financial problems, lack of exploration success and political dogma cause uncertainty across much of the region
14 May 2025
The invisible hand of the market has seen increasing transparency but much more needs to be done to build a better understanding
13 May 2025
A fall in Venezuelan output drives overall production lower, as Saudi Arabia starts to slowly bring more crude to the market
12 May 2025
With the gas industry’s staunchest advocates and opponents taking brutal blows, the sector looks like treading a path of insipid indifference
