re: #39 BishopX

It costs roughly $60/barrel to extract oil from the Alberta tar sands.

That was the figure tossed around a few years ago, but I wonder how it has changed in the past year? While natural gas prices are depressed (due to an abundance of supply in the US) the costs will remain lower (background: current processes use copious natural gas to convert the tar into something more useful), but when one figures in the costs of water treatment (if done properly) and labor it could have moved higher than $60/bbl.