Suncor Energy Inc. will resume investment in the 50%-complete third stage of its Firebag in situ development in the oil sands of Alberta.

Although the oil sands industry will continue to develop in Alberta despite the jolt it received when oil prices plunged last year, total Canadian oil exports to the US face constraints, according to a study by the Center for Global Energy Studies, London, and Geopolitics Central, Calgary.

The realistic scenario in the latest Canadian Energy Research Institute outlook expects Alberta oil sands production to increase to 1.7 million b/d by 2015, 2.5 million b/d by 2020, 4.5 million b/d by 2030 before reaching a peak of 5.3 million b/d in 2041.

Arrow Energy Ltd., Brisbane, has appointed WorleyParsons as program manager for the front-end engineering and design study for its Surat basin coalseam methane project in Queensland.

Suncor Energy Inc. is seeking approvals for a process it says can shrink the environmental footprint of oil sands mining operations.

Suncor Energy Inc. expects repairs to be complete by month’s end to fire damage at one of its two oil sands upgraders north of Fort McMurray, Alta.

Suncor Energy Inc., Calgary, let a contract to KBR Canada to carry out turnaround services next year for its oil sands plant in Fort McMurray, Alta.

Argentina’s secretary of energy has approved the first contract under an incentive program to encourage development of unconventional natural gas reservoirs.

Athabasca Oil Sands Corp. (AOSC) has entered a series of joint venture agreements with PetroChina International Investment Co. Ltd.

ConocoPhillips has signed a farmin agreement with Green Dragon Gas’s Greka China subsidiary covering the development of coalbed methane reserves in three production-sharing contracts in China.

The Wyoming State Geological Survey, in association with the US Bureau of Land Management’s Buffalo, Wyo., field office, has released a report about groundwater monitoring in the Wyoming portion of the Powder River basin.

A US Department of Energy-sponsored project has led to development of an infrastructure placement analysis system (IPAS) to help producers recover natural gas more effectively from shale formations in environmentally sensitive areas.

The expected economic recovery in developing the oil sands in Alberta may start in late 2009 or early 2010, said Robert J. Mason, managing director, head of oil sands, investment banking, global energy, and power group, TD Securities Inc., Calgary.

Imperial Oil Ltd. awarded Fluor Corp. a $1.5 billion engineering, procurement, and construction contract for infrastructure and offlease facilities for the first phase of the Kearl oil sands project, a surface mining and bitumen extraction operation about 70 km northeast of Fort McMurray, Alta.

ExxonMobil Production Co. recently completed new field facilities in its Piceance basin operations in Colorado’s Rio Blanco County.