Alberta’s Oilsands

The oilsands underlie approximately 140,000 square kilometres of Alberta, an area about the size of Florida.1

• The land area open to oilsands leases covers about 20% of Alberta.2
• Alberta’s oilsands are primarily found in three deposits: Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River.3

Alberta’s first oilsands mine opened in 1967.4

• The company that started that mine, Great Canadian Oilsands Company, is now called Suncor Energy.5
• Industrial interest in the oilsands goes back as far as the early 1700s, when local First Nations fur traders brought oilsands samples to the Hudson’s Bay Fort Churchill post.6

Almost 60% of the total oilsands area has been leased to companies for extraction.

• As of June 2009, the Alberta government had granted 85,000 square kilometres of oilsands leases.7
• The government grants oilsands leases without an environmental assessment.

Oilsands operations either surface mine the ore or extract the bitumen using in situ techniques.8

• Surface mining is used for oilsands deposits that are less than 75 metres underground.
• Deeper deposits are recovered using techniques that heat and extract the bitumen “in place” (in situ) so it can be pumped to the surface.

The surface mineable area is larger than Greater Vancouver.

• The surface mineable area covers 4,750 square kilometres in the Athabasca Oilsands Region.9
• With surface mining, the area is first cleared of trees, then the muskeg is drained of water and removed and then the underlying clay, silt and gravel is removed to expose the oilsands deposit.
• Large shovels excavate the oilsands and load it in giant trucks that transport it to an extraction plant where heat and water separate the bitumen from the sand.10

By July 2009, mining operations had disturbed more than 686 square kilometres of boreal forest.11

• The developed mining area is as big as Waterton Lakes National Park.
• In total, 1,352 square kilometres have been approved for surface mining operations as of January 2009. 12

Oilsands suitable for in situ extraction underlie 135,250 square kilometres — nearly 30 times as large as the surface mineable area.13

• In situ extraction is performed by drilling several wells into the deposit, using steam to heat and separate the bitumen, and then pumping the bitumen to the surface.14
• Most in situ oilsands deposits are 350 to 600 metres below the surface.15
• The two main types of in situ technology are steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and cyclic steam stimulation (CSS).

Alberta’s oilsands are the second largest petroleum reserve in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia’s crude oil reserve.16

• The Alberta oilsands contain reserves of between 1.7 and 2.5 trillion barrels of crude bitumen.17 Of that, an estimated 171.3 billion barrels can be recovered using current technology.18
• In comparison, Canada has an estimated 5.4 billion barrels of conventional crude oil reserves, of which 2 billion barrels are in Alberta.19
• Approximately 18% of the bitumen is surface mineable and 82% is suitable for in situ extraction.20

In 2008, 45% of Canada’s total oil production came from the oilsands,21 and that proportion is growing yearly.

• In 2010, 55% of Alberta’s oilsands production (or 825,000 barrels per day) was from mining operations, with in situ operations producing the other 45% (or 664,000 million barrels per day).22
• Currently, less than half of the total oilsands production was exported out of province as non-upgraded bitumen. This proportion of non-upgraded bitumen exports is projected to rise from 42%, or 554,000 barrels per day in 2009 to 52% of total production, or 1,528,000 barrels per day by 2019.23

Canada’s oilsands continue to rapidly recover from the recent recession. A doubling of current industry size has already been approved.24

• Operating design capacity is currently at 1.90 million barrels per day, with 4.11 million barrels per day already approved by the provincial and federal governments.25
• In comparison to production capacity, oilsands operations produced 1.5 million barrels of bitumen per day in 2009,26 up from 300,000 barrels per day in 1999.27
• Industry forecasts suggest production rates will increase to 2.2 million barrels per day by 2015 and to 3.5 (CAPP) million barrels per day by 2025.28

Individual oilsands projects do not operate in isolation. Every new project that is approved adds to the cumulative environmental impacts associated with development in the Fort McMurray region.

• The Royal Society of Canada notes weak regulatory systems at the provincial and federal level have failed to effectively assess cumulative impacts of oilsands development.29
• A lack of reliable data makes it difficult to set, monitor and enforce ecosystem capacity limits.30^,31

updated March 2011

• 1. Alberta Energy, Alberta’s Leased Oilsands Area (2010).
• 2. The total area of Alberta is 661,190 square kilometres. Source: Government of Alberta, “About Alberta: Climate and Geography” (accessed June 5, 2009).
• 3. Alberta Energy, “What Is Oilsands” (last revised June 11, 2009).
• 4. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “History of Oilsands Development” (accessed August 2009).
• 5. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “History of Oilsands Development” .
• 6. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “History of Oilsands Development” .
• 7. Alberta Energy, Alberta’s Leased Oilsands Area (2010).
• 8. Alberta Energy, Facts on Oilsands (accessed May 14, 2009).
• 9. Alberta Energy, Alberta’s Leased Oilsands Area (2010). This delineation of the surface mineable area is an increase of 1,350 square kilometres from the previous delineation, which put the surface mineable area at 3,400 square kilometres. See figure 2-4 in Energy Resources Conservation Board, ST98-2009: Alberta’s Energy Reserves 2008 and Supply/Demand Outlook 2009–2018 (2009).
• 10. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Oilsands: Development” (accessed August 2009).
• 11. Data from GIS study conducted by Global Forest Watch. Global Forest Watch, Bitumen and Biocarbon: Land use conversions and loss of biological carbon due to bitumen operations in the Boreal Forests of Alberta (accessed December 22, 2010)
• 12. Government of Alberta, Alberta's Oil Sands: About the Resource (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 13. Alberta Energy, Alberta’s Leased Oilsands Area (Edmonton, AB: July 30, 2010). Total Area (140,000 square kilometres) - Minable Area (4,750 square kilometres) = In Situ Area (135,250 square kilometres)
• 14. Energy Resources Conservation Board, “Oilsands: Development” (accessed August 2009).
• 15. Alberta Energy, "Oil Sands 101: Recovery" (accessed December 22, 2010) .
• 16. Government of Alberta, “Talk About Oilsands” (accessed May 5, 2009).
• 17. Natural Resources Canada, “Crude Oil and Natural Gas Resources,” (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 18. Government of Alberta, Alberta's Oil Sands: About the Resource (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 19. Natural Resources Canada, “Canadian Oil Market: Review of 2006 and Outlook to 2020,” modified January 12, 2009.
• 20. Natural Resources Canada, “Canadian Oil Market: Review of 2006 and Outlook to 2020,” modified January 12, 2009.
• 21. Calculated from National Energy Board, “Estimated Production of Canadian Crude Oil and Equivalent — 2008,” revised March 2009 (accessed April 28, 2009).
• 22. Energy Resources Conservation Board, ST98-2010: Alberta’s Energy Reserves 2009 and Supply/Demand Outlook 2010-2019, Calculated from Fig. 2.16. (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 23. Energy Resources Conservation Board, ST98-2010: Alberta’s Energy Reserves 2009 and Supply/Demand Outlook 2010-2019, Fig. 2.21. (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 24. Strategy West, Existing and Proposed Canadian Oil Sands Projects (accessed January 14, 2011).
• 25. Strategy West, Existing and Proposed Canadian Oil Sands Projects.
• 26. Government of Alberta, Alberta's Oil Sands: About the Resource (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 27. Natural Resources Canada, “1999/2000 Annual Sector Reports — Oilsands” (accessed May 1, 2009).
• 28. Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, Crude Oil: Forecast, Markets & Pipelines (accessed December 22, 2010).
• 29. Royal Society of Canada, Environmental and Health Impacts of Canada’s Oil Sands Industry (2010) (accessed January 28, 2011).
• 30. RAMP Review Panel, 2010 Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP) Scientific Review (accessed Feb 14, 2011).
• 31. Royal Society of Canada, Environmental and Health Impacts of Canada’s Oil Sands Industry.