| I'm going to call it oil sands, because that is in fact what it is - oil in sand. The name tar sands came about from negative media portrail. In fact, Suncor, Imperial Oil and Syncrude (especially after Suncor took a major stake in it) have drastically reduced their production costs. In fact, they are in the black for their Oil Sands operations. Suncor is supposed to have their new Fort Hills mine operating in 4th quarter of 2017. Their cost of production at this mine is even lower thanks to new technology and the fact that the oil is so close to the surface. You can grab the dirt at the surface and squeeze out the oil. What helps these bigger oil sands corporations be profitable is the vertical integration and the fact that they are involved in upstream, downstream and retailing. Additionally, a by-product of oil sands is natural gas. Rather than burn off the natural gas, they do co-generation. Not only do they produce enough electricity for their own operations, but generate excess which they sell into the grid. I am pretty convinced they make a ton of money in selling electricity. Some of the smaller producers are in trouble, but the big guys tend to buy them and restructure things to make them profitable.
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