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by dean 5002 days ago
If we're talking oil reserves, not production, then according to Wikipedia, Canada has the 3rd largest proven oil reserves in the world at 175,200,000,000 barrels. The U.S. is 13th with 20,682,000,000 barrels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_proven_oil...
2 comments

I had forgotten about Canada's oil supplies. If I remember right, most of it's located in oil sands in Alberta. Extracting it and transporting it used to be more expensive than it was worth but they're doing more with chemical extraction techniques to pull out the oil. From what I've read, it left some pretty serious scars on the environment.

Also, looking back at the original article, I really wonder whether there's any production or efficiency benefit to what these 3rd party companies are doing to monitor levels. I kind of have the impression that they're feeding the real time demand of commodity markets and traders. Maybe there's something with pricing efficiency, but does that really make a difference outside of the commodity markets?

Oil sands are economical above $60 / bbl, so it's a bull market for Alberta oil sands now.
The US number is likely low because the US Gov is evaluating the size of Texas's new discovery and revising upwards the ND number.