Bill and Warren's Excellent Alberta Adventure.

It's been a long time since I've done an Canadian oil sands post. These stocks have been clobbered along with everything else, but these are huge resources that will be producing for a long time. These projects aren't without issues, as it's carbon intensive, needs natural gas input as well as a large amount of water, and makes apparently one hell of a mess, so they need to get the environmental stuff done right.

The classic oil sands stock is Suncor, SU, but Bill Gates and Warren Buffett took a tour of the latest oil sands project, the Horizon project by Canadian Natural Resources, CNQ.

Other oil sands names include:

Canadian Oil Sands COSWF
Imperial Oil IMO
Nexen NXY
Encana ECA
ConocoPhillips COP
Husky HUSKF
ExxonMobil XOM
Shell RDSA
Devon DVN
Marathon MRO
Opti-Canada OPCDF

Because of the size and longevity of these resources, combined with the long term questions about reliable oil supply and peak oil, I have seen Suncor referred to as the "Microsoft of oil", with potentially 50 years of earnings growth ahead of it, as well as comments about oil sands stocks being "stocks to pass on to your grandchildren".

I'm looking forward to see what Warren Buffett has to say in his CNBC interview on Friday.

Financial Post: Buffett and Gates tour Alberta oil sands.

CNBC: Oilsands Stock Soars After Warren Buffett and Bill Gates Visit Alberta Project.