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

Kazakhstan was once a nation of nomads wandering vast steppes. They herded cattle, goats and camels. On the country’s western edge lies the Caspian Sea. Towns grew up along the shore there, hauling in catches of sturgeon and black caviar.

But otherwise, Kazakhstan was an empty desert. Even in the days of the old Silk Road, traders would skirt Kazakhstan’s southern border rather than try to cross that hell of a desert. It was remote. Desolate. The Soviets used parts of the northeast to test nuclear weapons.

The Aral Sea, site of one of the greatest environmental disasters ever, is in Kazakhstan. A century ago, carp, perch, caviar-bloated sturgeon and much more filled the Aral Sea. Fisherman hauled hundreds of tons of fish per year, fed themselves and loaded trains full of fish headed to Moscow. Then the Communists had some harebrained scheme to use the water for irrigation.