Suncor Energy Inc.'s (NYSE: SU) most important assets are in the Canadian oil sands. You don't drill for oil in the oil sands; you mine it. And that changes the oil equation in a big way. With two new projects ready to come online over the next year, one in the oil sands now is a good time to get to know this Canadian oil giant. Here's a quick primer explaining why you might want to buy Suncor Energy today.
Oil sands are, basically, just what they sound like: earth that's saturated with oil. To get the oil out, you dig up the material and then process it to release the oil. It's pretty expensive to build an oil-sands project, which leaves many investors with the impression that oil sands are costly to operate. But the truth is that once built, operating an oil sands mine is relatively cheap.
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Source: Fool.com