BUT, not the technology to extract it efficiently
What better way to spend their US$ holdings (before it gets devalued even further)
Excerpt from
Nexen deal sheds light on China's oilsands strategy - Reuters
A total of 1.6 billion barrels had been found in four natural bitumen
accumulations in Junggar (
Dzungarian) Basin in the northwestern region of Xinjiang as of the
end of 2008, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
It also says China
has 8.9 billion barrels of extra-heavy oil resource and
substantial amounts of shale oil.
China will speed up development of its abundant shale oil resources and is
considering launching some pilot projects, Liu Tienan, head of China's National
Energy Administration, told state media earlier this month.
Liu added that China has recoverable shale oil resources of 10 billion
tonnes.
Beijing has not set any domestic output goal for oil sands, heavy oil or
shale oil in any of its five-year economic development plans even though it has
set targets for shale gas and other cleaner unconventional resources in its 12th
five-year plan for 2011-2015.
"
Because of technology and cost constraints, China cannot develop all kinds
of unconventional resources at home in one go," said an energy researcher with
China's powerful economic planner, the National Development and Reform
Commission. He requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to foreign
media.
Despite the lack of a national target, an MLR research arm expects China to
produce 500,000 tonnes of oil sands in 2015 (8,630 bpd), one million tonnes a
year in 2020, and five million tonnes in 2030.
State oil firms now lack the incentives to make a headlong rush into domestic
oil sands when more abundant and commercially viable bitumen reserves are
available in Canada, analysts say.
The only oil sands project in China that has made some progress is
PetroChina's Karamay project in the Junggar Basin. It is expected to produce oil
in October and have an annual capacity of 100,000-200,000 tonnes by the end of
2012 and one million tonnes by the end of next year, Chinese media say.
Karamay started oil sands development on a trial basis around 2008, but it
was suspended later as PetroChina balked at the high cost and lack of economies
of scale, a MLR source said.
"Now our country is paying attention to unconventional resources, so
PetroChina resumed its oil sands experiment in Karamay. It needs to find the
right technology for the project," he told Reuters.
Junggar (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzungaria) Basin in the northwestern region of Xinjiang
