AutoblogGreen

Canada is the largest foreign supplier of petroleum to the United States and a large proportion of that oil originates in the province of Alberta. Unlike places like Texas and Saudi Arabia, most of the oil in Alberta doesn't squirt out when you jab a stick in the ground. The oil is locked up in the oil sands, which, although plentiful, are much more expensive to process than other sources. In recent years, as the global price of crude oil has climbed, the tar sands have become a much more economically viable as a source of petroleum.

Shell Canada is one of the major producers of oil from the Athabasca tar sands and they have just announced a major expansion of oil sands production. They'll be adding 100,000 barrels per day of production. Unfortunately, while doing this, emissions of greenhouse gases from oil sands production is continuing to increase. Shell claims to have decreased their total emissions 5.6 percent below their 1990 levels. At the same time oil sands production has increased by 5 percent and that doesn't include the emissions produced when the extra oil is actually consumed. Click Read to see the Shell press release.

[Source: Shell Canada via GreenCarCongress]