Public Storage (PSA), a real estate investment trust (REIT) operating self-storage facilities, reported a decline in total revenues for the third quarter to $412.9 million, compared to $431.2 million in the year-earlier quarter. The year over year decrease in revenue was primarily due to the continued challenges in the macroeconomic environment.   During the quarter, FFO (fund from operations) was $1.44 per share, compared to $1.08 in the year-earlier quarter. Fund from operations, a widely used metric to gauge the performance of REITs, is obtained after adding depreciation and amortization and other non-cash expenses to net income. The year over year increase in FFO was largely due to foreign currency exchange gain. Excluding the one-time items, FFO for the third quarter of 2009 was $1.30 per share compared to $1.37 in the year-ago period.   Same-store revenues decreased 4.6% during the quarter year over year, while net operating ...

Recently, I had the unique opportunity to tour two different oil sands operations near Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta. I saw a massive open-pit oil sands mine, and the associated reclamation effort, operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd. I also visited an in situ oil sands recovery project called Surmont, operated by ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP).

The trip was sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API), which paid for the airfare and accommodations. Managers at both Syncrude and ConocoPhillips granted me access to any parts of their operations I wanted to see (within allowances for safety). And everyone answered any and all questions I asked.

Post-trip, I have complete editorial freedom to write about what I saw and learned. And I learned a lot. So this is Part I of a two-part series. Watch for Part II.

The Past and Future of Oil and Oil Sands

The first thing that struck me about visiting

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A couple of weeks ago I was in Fort McMurray, Alberta.  I was visiting two large oil sands operations, courtesy of Conoco Phillips (NYSE:COP), Syncrude Canada and the American Petroleum Institute, which sponsored the trip.  I’ve been all over the place, but never to a working oil sands operation.  This was a first for me, and quite an eye-opener.

What Are These Oil Sands?

Back in Pleistocene time, the glaciers covered much of northern Alberta.  In places, there was a mile of ice.  During some of the warmer periods, there was a lot of melting.  On occasion, and in some places, there were giant, glacial-dammed lakes.

Every now and again, these glacial dams would break, sending massive volumes of water downstream, wiping away pretty much everything along the way.  Well, it turns out that in this scoured-out area that included much of the rock covering some lower Cretaceous deposits of

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