Historically, the ability to achieve a cleanup standard at sites with petroleum product floating on the groundwater table, referred to as light nonaqueous-phase liquid (LNAPL), has been judged on the amount of remaining LNAPL observed in wells, an approach that seemed perfectly rational at the time it was first developed.
Alberta's oil-sands region is awash with companies from Japan, South Korea, China and Norway, as well as big international players like Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP PLC - all competing for access to an estimated 170 billion barrels of oil recoverable using current technology.
