Well, then, you should be cheerful, rb, since that would mean long term prosperity for Alberta as global reserves of lower-cost light crude are depleted.

But that hardly explain why capital-intensive oil and gas projects around the world are being shelved, and multinationals are dumping their stakes in the oil sands and frontier areas such as the Arctic.

When demand begins to drop as a result of permanent structural change (as opposed to recessions) the oil business will turn into a trillion dollar game of musical chairs, with the slowest and highest cost producers the first to lose.