Alberta Oil Sands Provide Largest Share of US Oil Imports

Oil demand in the U.S. peaked in 2005, but it will remain the world's largest consumer over the next two decades, the report notes. That in turn will allow oilsands to assume a larger portion of the country's energy mix.

The oilsands would offset reduced supplies from traditional suppliers like Venezuela, Mexico and Saudi Arabia._VancouverSun

Canadian oil sands are tremendously important to the near and intermediate term energy futures of the US. If Obama Pelosi follows through on its threats to cut off imports of Canadian oil sands, the US would suffer an immediate and devastating energy shock.

If the oilsands were a country, they would be the largest source of crude oil to the United States, according to a new report by a leading American energy think-tank.

Canada has long been a top oil supplier to its southern neighbour, but 2010 will mark the first time oilsands production will account for the lion's share of U.S. imports of petroleum and refined products, according to the report prepared by Massachusettsbased Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Oilsands could eventually account for 20 to 36 per cent of U.S. supply by 2030, the report notes.

"The fact that oilsands by themselves -- were they a country -- are set to become the largest single source of U.S. crude oil imports this year, emphasizes the importance they have attained as a supply source for the United States," Daniel Yergin, IHS CERA chairman and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Prize, said in a news release. "It also shows how integrated Canada and the United States are in terms of energy, as in their overall economies."

...Report author Jackie Forrest, CERA's director of global oil, said subsequent studies will look at the impact of government policies on oilsands. Likewise, subsequent research will attempt to quantify the environmental impacts of oilsands against other supply sources like the deepwater, where a blowout is currently pumping 5,000 barrels a day into the Gulf of Mexico.

However, she said oilsands production compares favour-ably on an economic and environmental basis to other costly supply sources such as deepwater and even coal-to-liquids technology that produces fuel from coal seams._VancouverSun

There have been rumbling undercurrents and threats from the Obama - Pelosi government about cutting off Canadian oil sands imports for well over a year. It is difficult to believe that any government -- even Obama Pelosi -- could be so stupidly suicidal, but we will have to watch as the developing train wreck develops.