Top Industry Policy Issues

Bitumen is a mixture of heavy oil, sand, clay and water. It is separated from the sand and water in a centrifuge prior to dilution for transportation.

Find out what the Oil Sands Fact Check website is all about.

The United States imports 8.4 million barrels of oil and petroleum products a day to help meet its energy needs. Canada is the largest supplier to the U.S., providing more than 2.4 million barrels a day – more than 1/4 – of these imports.

The Canadian Energy Research Institute (CERI) has completed a study of the impact of developing Alberta’s oil sands in a staged manner according to the capacity and in-service date of existing and proposed pipelines.

Advanced technologies developed over many years are used to produce oil from oil sands.

These best practices are developed by industry experts in a variety of areas of technology and operations

America’s oil and natural gas industry considers safety its top priority and is committed to developing the technologies, standards and best practices, and programs needed to help ensure that workplace safety is at the forefront of our activities. Also, see API's latest Issue Papers which provides information on topics from access to offshore oil and natural gas to fuel prices and the impact of taxes on the industry.

This study by Wood Mackenzie examines the impacts of opening access to key U.S. regions which are currently closed to development, as well as assessing a return to historical levels of development on existing U.S. producing areas (including onshore U.S., the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska). The economic impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline and other potential Canada to U.S. oil pipelines are also considered.

Our energy vision is one of abundant resources, developed and refined here in the United States (U.S.) to the highest standards, creating domestic energy that is ready to work for America’s businesses and families. But current U.S. policies are failing us. They prevent us from adequately preparing for the long-term, when we know our nation will still need substantial quantities of oil and natural gas as well as alternatives.

What are the benefits of exporting LNG? Create and support thousands of jobs, generate billions of dollars in government revenues, reduce our trade deficit, help the industry operate efficiently by maintaining production levels thereby enhancing energy security and increase domestic production of associated natural gas liquids (NGLs), putting downward pressure on prices of chemical manufacturing feedstocks.