At the current price of oil, though, is it economically viable to do tar sands oil extractions?
VG: The numbers have varied in terms of the different projects. I’ve heard as low as $40 and as high as about $55 in terms of being economically viable. So if we use $40, which is the number I’ve heard more often than not, then, yes, it is economically viable (albeit barely). But at the end of the day, I can’t really see the price of oil staying this low for this long, especially if we subscribe to a global recovery—to a theory of a global recovery by 2010. Obviously oil demand is going to start shooting up again at a faster rate then. Even if we believe in an Asian recovery, where the rate of growth has gone from about 10% or 11% to 5%; yes, it’s contracted, but it’s still growing quite rampantly. So even if that comes back up to, let’s say, 8% again, the demand for oil is going to resume at a very daunting rate. So I do see the price of oil coming back to about $70 a barrel probably by the end of this year and sustaining $70 through next year, most likely rising from there. Oh, yeah,
