Athabasca Oil Sands Alberta Canada
The Athabasca Oil Sands are a major deposit of oil-rich bitumen located in northern Alberta, Canada, just North of Fort McMurray.
The oil that can be extracted from the oil sands is a major hope for the US to reduce its dependence on oil imports from the Middle East. Canada is already the largest exporter of oil to America, with oil imported from Canada exceeding the exports of Saudi Arabia. With ongoing violence continuing in the Mid East Canada is seen as a much more stable supplier and an even greater percentage of oil imported into the US from what is seen as a stable source is very welcome.
These oil sands consist of a mixture of crude bitumen , silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest of three oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the Peace River and Cold Lake deposits. Together, these oil sand deposits cover about 141 000 sq km of sparsely populated boreal forest and muskeg (peat bogs).
The Athabasca oil sands are named after the Athabasca River which cuts through the center of the deposit. Traces of the heavy oil are readily observed on the river banks. The oil sands were first seen by Europeans in 1788 although they hardly realized the significance of their find.
The most important characteristic of the Athabasca deposit is that it is shallow enough to be suitable for surface mining. About 10% of the Athabasca oil sands are covered by less than 75 metres (250 feet) of overburden. The area that can be mined as defined by the Alberta government covers 37 contiguous townships with an area of about 3400 square kilometres or 1300 square miles north of the city of Fort McMurray.
The overburden consists of 1 to 3 metres of water-logged muskeg on top of up to 75 metres of clay and barren sand. The underlying oil sands are typically 40 to 60 metres thick and sit on top of relatively flat limestone rock. The world’s first oil sands mine was started by Great Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor) in 1967. The Syncrude mine, the biggest mine in the world, followed in 1978. The Albian Sands mine operated by Shell Canada opened in 2003.
All three of these mines are associated with bitumen upgraders that convert the unusable bitumen into synthetic crude oil for shipment to refineries in Canada and the United States.
Estimated Crude Oil Reserves:
The Alberta Government calculates that about 28 billion cubic metres (174 billion barrels) of crude bitumen are economically recoverable from the three Alberta oil sands areas at current prices using current technology. This is equivalent to about 10% of the estimated 1,700 and 2,500 billion barrels of bitumen in place.
Alberta estimates that the Athabasca deposits alone contain 5.6 billion cubic metres (35 billion barrels) of surface mineable bitumen and 15.6 billion cubic metres (98 billion barrels) of bitumen recoverable by in-situ methods.
These estimates of Canada’s oil reserves caused some astonishment when they were first published but are now largely accepted by the international community. This volume places Canadian proven oil reserves second in the world behind those of Saudi Arabia.
As recovery technology improves to extract oil from the heavy bitumen useful Canadian oil reserves will continue to expand. And of course as oil prices continue their long term upward climb the Canadian sands oil producers should financially do very well indeed.
