Oil Firms Bidding Up Canada's Sands

CALGARY, Canada -- Canada's hottest piece of real estate isn't much to look at, a mix of swamp and scattered spruce and pine trees in northern Alberta.

Underneath the muskeg lie the oil sands, by some measures the world's largest petroleum reserves outside Saudi Arabia. To tap the deposits, companies such as Royal Dutch Shell are paying record prices for undeveloped land. Already this year, the province of Alberta has raised more money from oil sands leases than the record amount earned in all of 2005.

The sands have "become the Beverly Hills of the oil patch," said Gregg Scott, president of Calgary-based Scott Land & Lease, Canada's biggest land broker. "This is the most high-profile play I've seen in my 24 years as a broker."

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