NORTH AMERICAN OIL SANDS: HISTORY OF DEVELOPMENT, PROSPECTS FOR THE FUTURE - Energy Research Developments: Tidal Energy, Energy Efficiency and Solar Energy - page 295

Because of huge capital requirements, oil sands producers lobbied for continued royalty
relief and thought the government should “defer tax and royalty revenues until project
expansions were completed.”[34] In 1994, the National Oil Sands Task Force (an
industry/government group) was created, and the Canadian Oil Sands Network for R&D
(CONRAD) agreed to spend $105 million annually to boost production and trim costs. Costs
continued to fall ($15.39/bbl in 1992[35] to under $14/ bbl in 1994[36]) as Syncrude
ownership continued to change. In 1996, the National Oil Sands Task Force recommended a
package of royalty and tax terms to ensure consistent and equal treatment of projects, because
oil sand projects previously were treated on a project-by-project basis. The implementation of
favorable royalty treatment is discussed below.
The ARC has had a successful partnership with the private sector in oil sands research
and development. As a result of favorable royalty and tax terms and Alberta's $700 million
R&D investment in oil sands extraction (from 1976-2001), the private sector has invested
billions of dollars of development capital in oil sand projects.[37] Syncrude has said that
“partnering with ARC gave us the ability to explore a potentially valuable technology.”[38]
Oil Sands Production Process
Oil sands production measured only 1.3% of total world crude oil production in 2005. By
2025 it may reach 4.1% of total world production. But more importantly, it may mean U.S.
access to extensive North American oil reserves and increased energy security.
Source : Oil Sands Technology Roadmap , Alberta Chamber of Resources, January 2004, p. 21.
Figure 3. Major Mining Process Steps.