Did you know that TOP 10 oil and gas companies produce over 56.6 million barrels per day, that global oil reserves stand at 1.38 trillion barrels and are expected to last another 46.2 years. This infographic also shows the list of TOP 5 countries with the highest oil reserves along with their oil supply and the years of remaining reserves.

The World's Biggest Oil & Gas Companies infographic by stedas.

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According to the National Energy Board's release, the size of the leak remains unknown, although the company said in a statement it has detected about two cubic metres, or 12 barrels, of light crude.

Kinder Morgan said the leak was found during regular maintenance late Wednesday afternoon near Kingsvale, about 40 kilometres south of Merritt, along Highway 3, in BC. By now the firm said the oil has been fully contained, none has seeped into any waterways and there is no threat to the public.

The NEB reported the pipeline had been shut down and Kinder Morgan confirmed company staff was at the scene overnight and are still working to repair the line.

Sierra Club BC Interim Executive Director, Sarah Cox, said the spill reinforces why Canadians should "reject Kinder Morgan’s proposal to build a second pipeline in order to ship tar sands bitumen past Victoria and the Gulf Islands.”

She added pipelines were not job creators, "unless you want to work in oil spill response."

The Trans Mountain line ships 300,000 barrels per day of various petroleum products from Alberta to BC's Lower Mainland and Washington State.

The company has plans to nearly triple the capacity of the system to 890,000 barrels a day with a project that would cost about $5.4 billion.

Image by Leonid Ikan/Shutterstock.com

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Environmentalists and aboriginals have invited him to visit Fort McMurray, in the north of the province, during the July 1 Canada Day long weekend.

He will try to understand the benefits of the oilsands to the country's economy, Kennedy told CP, although he doesn't expect the tour to change his opinion. He also hopes to meet with producers in the oil industry.

Kennedy is a professor at Pace Law School in White Plains, New York, as well as co-director of the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic. He is also a senior attorney for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

He is one of the most well-known and high profile critics in the US of the Keystone XL pipeline project.

Last February, Kennedy was arrested in front of the White House during a protest opposing the completion of the project.

Image: s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

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The upcoming rules will reflect the world's eight richest nations group (G8) initiative undertook after their 2011 meeting in Deauville, France, when they promised they would enforce greater scrutiny of companies' payments to foreign governments, CBC.ca reports.

“With 70% of the world’s mining companies listed in Canada, and 70% of the world’s free-enterprise oil located in Canada, our participation will help transform the way industry reports payments worldwide,” Harper was quoted as saying.

In response to the announcement, the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC) said in an e-mailed statement the group was highly satisfied with the news, as they believe their efforts on transparency provided the groundwork for the Prime Minister’s decision.

“Transparency is a necessary tool for fostering greater accountability, and helps ensure that the benefits of natural resource development reach the more than one billion people living in resource-rich countries,” said Ross Gallinger, Executive Director, PDAC.

He added that the implementation of a framework for mandatory reporting was an "important and feasible" goal for the country.

Canada is a major player in the extractive industry, with about half of the mining that takes place around the world done by Canadian companies. On top of that, 70% of all the world’s mining and exploration companies and 35% of all oil and gas companies are listed on the country's exchanges, according to official figures.

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The company will divest its 40% share of leases 83 and 85 which hold the Madu and Anyala fields. The two blocks are owned in partnership with state-run oil firm NNPC.

According to local media, the blocks have reserves of about 250 million barrels of oil, although the company would not release information on thise.

With last years' output of 238,000 barrels per day of crude oil, Chevron is Nigeria's third-biggest oil producer.

The country wants to overhaul regulations, royalties and taxes for the oil sector, however, the changes have been stuck in parliament which has been creating uncertainty for the industry.

British-Dutch producer Shell (LON: RDSA), which ranks ahead of Chevron in output, has been trying to sell its onshore oil blocks and move to safer offshore locations.

France's Total (EPA: FP) sold its 20% interest in offshore blocks, valued at $2.5 billion, to China's Sinopec last year.

ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) sold its stakes to Nigerian company Oando in 2012 also.

Overall, the country puts out approximately 2 million barrels of crude per day.

Image: Shutterstock.com

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These potential contributions represent a 47% increase in gas reserves and an 11% increase in oil reserves. 

Basins of shale oil and gas around the world:

The United States ranked second globally in terms of "technically recoverable shale oil resources" and fourth in terms of "technically recoverable shale gas resources."

The much publicized US shale boom has a number of environmental, political and economic consequences, including the possibility of America becoming the world's top petroleum producer.

Shale has already transformed the US energy market, and the EIA report attempts now to "quantify the potential global significance of the shale boom."

The report explicitly mentions its own shortcomings, suggesting that the estimates are "highly uncertain and will remain so until they are extensively tested with production wells." Economic viability is not assessed in the report.

Development of shale requires use of the controversial drilling technique of hydraulic fracturing or 'fracking,' which is still banned in some countries including France and Bulgaria.

Read more here.
Sources: US EIA; Phys.org; The BBC

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In its latest report, CAPP says crude oil extraction will more than double to 6.7 million barrels per day by 2030 from the 3.2 million in 2012.

Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers data

The 2030 estimate includes 5.2 million barrels per day coming from the oil sands, especially more from drilling production, up from 1.8 million barrels per day last year.

Conventional production was 1.2 million barrels per day last year and it is expected to rise to 1.4 million barrels per day by 2015 then remain at that level.

Atlantic Canada's offshore oil supply forecast remains unchanged at about 200,000 barrels per day.

CAPP says oil sands production growth reflects Canada’s supply potential and the growing international demand for oil.

Canada's supply is aimed at markets in the eastern part of the country as well as the US and Asia.

Download the full report.

Image: Christopher Kolaczan / Shutterstock.com

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The government said Friday in a written release its questions had not been satisfactorily answered when it had reviewed all of the evidence and submissions made to the national joint review panel.

After a thorough examination, the environment minister said they had asked substantive questions about the pipeline route, spill response and financial structure to handle any incidents.

"Northern Gateway has said that they would provide effective spill response in all cases. However, they have presented little evidence as to how they will respond," the minister said.

Without proper answers, the government does not believe a certificate should be granted for the project.

BC restated its conditions for building and operating heavy-oil pipelines:

1. Pass the environmental review
2. Establish a world-leading system for marine oil spill prevention and response
3. Establish world-leading practices for land oil spill prevention and response
4. Opportunities for and consultation with First Nations and respect for treaty rights
5. BC to receive a fair share of the project's fiscal and economic benefits

The National Energy Board's joint review panel will make the final decision on the project.

Government officials will put forward their final arguments in person to the panel in Terrace, BC, on June 17.

Enbridge's $5.5 billion Northern Gateway project includes two pipelines running 1,177 kilometres to carry 525,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to BC's north coast.

Images: Dogwood Initiative, Creative Commons, Flickr

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The government expects the project to help the local economy through increased foreign exchange and other revenues.

With the extraction of rare earths and natural gas, the country forecasts its gross domestic product to jump by 10% to 20% by 2015.

An Australian company was granted the exploration licence.

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Satellite image comparing Athabasca Region in 1984 and 2011

Alberta has approved a controversial and commercially untested method for cleaning up tailings in the Canadian province's vast oil sands fields.

The province's oil and gas regulator Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development (AESRD) gave the OK for so-called end pit lakes as an alternative to reforesting.

Canadian giant Syncrude will be the first to test the technology and 30 of these pits capped with fresh water are planned for the Athabasca region.

The Edmonton Journal reports :

Filling an old mine pit with water at the end of the mine’s life is common in the metals mining industry, but the technique has not yet been tried in the oilsands mining in the boreal forest.

Nikki Booth, AESRD spokesperson, noted that several coal mines in Alberta closed with an end pit lake, and at least one is now used for fishing. It has received a provincial reclamation certificate, which relieves the company of liability for the site.

AESRD said in May it expects oil sands production to hit 3.8 million barrels per day by 2022, up from 1.9 million barrels per day in 2012.

Roughly 20% of oil sands crude is extracted through conventional mining activity where the reserves are accessed through open pit mines.

In situ steam-assisted bitumen extraction where the oil is recovered via drills and wells is growing more rapidly than traditional mining technology using trucks and shovels.

A recent study by the Petroleum HR Council of Canada estimated that over the same period, the oil sands operations workforce is projected to grow by 71%, adding 16,000 direct new jobs and increasing overall employment to 38,300 workers.

Western Canada Select – a blend of conventional crude and oils sands – was last trading at $75 a barrel, almost $19 below the benchmark US crude West Texas Intermediate and at a $28 discount to the international price in the form of North Sea Brent which on Tuesday changed hands for $103 a barrel.

WCS recent trading levels is a marked recovery from five-year lows of $41 below WTI the blend reached in December. At the same time the gap between WTI and Brent has also narrowed, further boosting the profitability of oil sands producers.

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The China National Petroleum Corporation will operate the project in the northern part of the country in the Amu Darya basin, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Eventually, the project is expected to supply enough domestic energy for Afghanistan to stop importing oil.

Turkish, Kuwaiti and United Arab Emirates companies are developing the country's biggest oil project in the Afghan-Tajik basin, also located in the northern region.

Afghanistan's untapped mineral and energy reserves are estimated to be worth trillions of dollars.

Image: Shutterstock.com

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The original plan was for BHP to sell its stake to Canada's Global Alumina Corporation.

BHP's exit from the project – once estimated at $5.2 billion – fits neatly into CEO Andrew Mackenzie's plan to reduce operations in 'riskier' locations:

"Our decision to focus on the OECD was deliberate and, I would argue, increasingly looks like the right call."

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The trip – the first of its kind – was full of exciting moments.

The explorers crossed paths with polar bears, numerous seals, and a huddle of mustachioed walruses.

Aurora borealis performed for the travelers, lighting up "the entire sky," according to expedition leader Vassili Ielaguine.

"Heaven helped" the men one day when, before their eyes, ice floes closed a wide chasm that would have otherwise prompted a long detour. Ielaguine said that they may well have run out of fuel.

Conflicting territorial claims over the Arctic and its immense natural resource wealth were left aside as the Russians were received warmly upon arrival in Resolute Bay.

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Short-term changes to the North American oil market will be "transformative" due to a lot more oil being produced and more refineries coming online in developing countries, according to a report by the International Energy Agency released May 14.

The IEA predicts global refining capacity will surge by 9.5 mb/d, led by China and the Middle East, a change that will lead to big changes in shipping and logistics.

With so much refinery capacity coming online, margins at OECD refineries will face significant margin pressure.

Non-OECD economies already account for a clear majority of global crude distillation capacity, but their share of the refining market is set to rise steeply in the next five years following large increments in the Middle East, Asia, Russia and Latin America. China, in particular, may become saddled with significant excess product output, following ambitious expansion plans at both state-owned refineries and socalled ‘tea-pot’ plants, a sector increasingly restructured and made more efficient in recent years. Saudi Arabia is also aggressively expanding downstream through large-scale joint ventures with international companies. As global refining capacity expansions outpace upstream supply growth, let alone demand growth, margins and utilisation rates will come under pressure and higher-cost refineries will face increasingly strong competitive headwinds. European refineries are at particularly high risk of closure over the forecast period.

Developing countries that have relied on oil wealth to get shore up weak governance will be in for a shock. The study says that ". . . the technologies responsible for the boom will increase production from mature, conventional fields – causing companies to reconsider investments in higher-risk areas."

Over the next five-years, the new technologies that made mature fields in the US productive again will still lag in the rest of the world as the technology and infrastructure slowly spreads out.

The release of the report caused a barrel of oil dropped below $95 a barrel. Crude oil contracts in New York hit $94.72 on Tuesday.

Slide from IEA showing a decline in crude oil exports to North America.

Creative commons image oil pumping station in Nebraska by shannonpatrick17

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Mackenzie has been doing the rounds in Pilbara over the past 24 hours, "meeting some of the estimated 13,000 people who work for BHP in the region," reported Peter Ker Friday morning from Sydney.

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