Non-conventional oil: can it fill the gap?

Despite the reduction of oil price from $147/b to around $75/b today, these prices are expected to rise, hence alternative fuels are of increasing relevance. The 1.2 tn barrels of proved reserves are increased to 9 tn by the inclusion of tar sands and oil shale plus CTL and GTL, but their current contribution is less then 1.5 mn b/d compared with a total of 85 mn b/d, and the challenges are major. The Canadian oil sands represent the only significant non-conventional supply today, and the recent innovative schemes of production (SAGD, THAI) have been joined by replacing natural gas with the bitumen itself to raise the necessary steam, and introducing the electro-thermal dynamic stripping process (ET-DSP) in which electrical current is conducted through the bitumen via the groundwater. Shale is assessed to represent 2.5 tn barrels of oil, and the various schemes for recovery include microwaves, hot gas injection and radio waves, combined with supercritical CO2.