| Athabasca Tar Sands |
Article Index for Athabasca |
Limousines in Athabasca |
Website Links For Athabasca |
Information AboutAthabasca Tar Sands |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT ATHABASCA OIL SANDS | |
| oil fields of alberta | |
| tar sands of canada | |
|
The Athabasca Oil Sands are a large deposit of oil-rich Bitumen located in northern Alberta , Canada . These Oil Sands consists of a mixture of crude bitumen (a semi-sold form of crude oil), silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit 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 km&2 of sparsely populated Boreal Forest and Muskeg (peat Bogs ). The Athabasca oil sands are named after the Athabasca River which cuts through the heart of the deposit, and are readily observed on the river banks. Historically, the bitumen was used by the indigenous Cree and Dene Aboriginal Peoples to waterproof their canoes. The oil deposits are located within the boundaries of Treaty 8 , and several First Nations of the area are involved with the sands. The oil sands were first observed by Europeans in 1788. The key characteristic of the Athabasca deposit is that it is the only one 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 overburden consisting water-logged muskeg on top of clay and barren sand, while the underlying oil sands are typically 40 to 60 metres thick and sit on top of relatively flat limestone. As a result of the easy accessibility, the world's first oil sands mine was started by Great Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor ) back in 1967. The Syncrude mine (the biggest mine in the world) followed in 1978, and the Albian Sands mine (operated by Shell Canada ) in 2003. All three of these mines are associated with bitumen Upgrader s that convert the unusable bitumen into Synthetic Crude oil for shipment to Refineries in Canada and the United States. The Athabasca oil sands are primarily located in and around the city of Fort McMurray which was still, in the late 1950s, primarily a wilderness outpost of a few hundred people whose main economic activities included fur trapping and salt mining. Since the Energy Crisis of the 1970s, Fort McMurray has been transformed into a Boomtown of 80,000 people struggling to provide services and housing for migrant workers, many of them from Eastern Canada, especially Newfoundland . ESTIMATED OIL RESERVES The Alberta Government believes that about 174 billions barrels of crude bitumen are economically recoverable in 2005 from the Athabasca deposit, equivalent to about 10% of the estimated 1,700 and 2,500 billion barrels of bitumen in the Athabasca deposit. 1 These estimates of Canada's Oil Reserves are now largely accepted by the international community which ranks Canadian proven oil reserves just behind those of Saudi Arabia . The Venezuelan Orinoco Tar Sands site is considered by some to contain slightly larger oil sands than Athabasca (see Tar Sands article). OIL SANDS PRODUCTION Commercial production of oil from the Athabasca oil sands first began in 1967, when Great Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor) opened its first mine. Expansion was constrained by declining world oil prices, and the second mine, operated by the Syncrude consortium, did not begin operations until 1978, after the 1973 Oil Crisis . However, the price of oil subsided afterwards, and although the 1979 Energy Crisis caused oil prices to peak again, introduction of the National Energy Program by Pierre Trudeau caused the oil companies and the Alberta government under Premier Peter Lougheed to pull the plug on new developments. Once more, prices declined to very low levels, causing considerable retrenchment in the oil industry, and the third mine, operated by Shell Canada, did not begin operation until 2003. However, with Oil Price Increases Of 2004 And 2005 , the existing mines have been greatly expanded and new ones are being planned. According to the Canadian Association Of Petroleum Producers , in 2005 production of crude bitumen reached one million barrels per day, accounting for 50% of Canadian oil production. With the planned projects coming on stream, by 2010 oil sands production is projected to reach 2 million barrels per day or about two thirds of Canadian production. By 2015 Canadian oil production may reach 4 million barrels per day, of which only 15% will be conventional crude oil, and, assuming continued high oil prices, by 2020 or 2025 Canadian oil production may exceed that of the United States. EXTRACTION OF OIL See main article on Oil Sands Extraction The original process of extraction used at the oil sands was developed by Dr. Karl Clark, working with the Research Council of Alberta in the 1920s.2 Historically (since the 1960's), the oil sands have been mined in huge open pit mines and extracted from the sand by variations of the Clark water-based extraction process, which separates aerated bitumen from the other oil sand components in gravity settling vessels. More recently, new in-situ methods have been developed to extract bitumen from deep deposits by injecting steam to heat the sands and reduce the bitumen viscosity so that it can be pumped out like conventional crude oil. The standard extraction process also requires huge amounts of natural gas. Currently, the oil sands industry uses about 4% percent of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin natural gas production. By 2015, this may increase by a factor of 2.5 times. {Link without Title} According to the National Energy Board, it requires about 0.4 Mcf of natural gas to produce one barrel of synthetic crude oil, which is the energy equivalent of 6 Mcf of gas, so the process produces a substantial net gain in energy. That being the case, it is likely that in the short term exports of natural gas to the United States will be reduced to provide fuel to the oil sands plants. In the long term, however, oil upgraders will likely turn to bitumen Gasification to generate their own fuel. In much the same way the bitumen can be converted into synthetic crude oil, it can also be converted to synthetic natural gas. In-situ extraction on a commercial scale is just beginning. A project nearing completion, the Long Lake Project , is designed to provide its own fuel, by on-site cracking of the bitumen mined.3 It is supposed to start extracting bitumen in 2006, and "upgrading" of bitumen to liquid oil in 2007, producing 60,000 bbl/day of usable oil. If it works, the natural gas problem becomes less of an issue and the problem of disposing of tailings disappears. GEOPOLITICAL IMPORTANCE The Athabasca Oil Sands are now featured prominently in international trade talks, with energy rivals China and the United States both negotiating with Canada for a bigger share of the oil sands' rapidly increasing output. Output at the oil sands is expected to quadruple between 2005 and 2015, reaching 4 million bbl/day, increasing their political and economic importance. Although most of the oil sands production is currently exported to the Unites States, that could change. An agreement has been signed between PetroChina and Enbridge to build a 400,000 barrel-per-day pipeline from Edmonton, Alberta to the west-coast port of Kitimat, British Columbia to export synthetic crude oil from the oil sands to China and elsewhere in the Pacific, plus a 150,000 bpd pipeline running the other way to import condensate to dilute the bitumen so it will flow. Sinopec , China's largest refining and chemical company, and China National Petroleum Corporation have bought or are planning to buy shares in major oil sands development. Not to be outdone, India has announced plans to invest $1 billion in the Athabasca Oil Sands in 2006. As many as four different Indian companies are involved. INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE AREA Indigenous Peoples of the area include the Fort McKay First Nation and the Fort McMurray First Nation . The oil sands themselves are located within the boundaries of Treaty 8 , signed in 1899 . The Fort McKay First Nation has formed several companies to service the oil sands industry, and will be developing a mine on their territory {Link without Title} . However, support within the First Nation for such development is not unanimous. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS The open-pit mining of the Athabasca oils sands destroys the Boreal Forest , the Bogs , the rivers as well as the natural landscape. The Alberta mining industry believes that the boreal forest will eventually colonize the reclaimed lands, yet 30 years after the opening of the first open pit mine in the region no land is considered by the Alberta Government as having been "restored." Furthermore, for every barrel of synthetic oil produced in Alberta, more than 80 kg of Greenhouse Gases are released into the atmosphere and between 3 and 5 barrels of waste water are dumped into Tailing Ponds . The forecast growth in synthetic oil production in Alberta also threatens Canada's international commitments. In ratifying the Kyoto Protocol , Canada agreed to reduce, by 2012, its greenhouse gas emissions by 6% with respect to the reference year (1990). In 2002, Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions had increased by 24% since 1990. OIL SAND COMPANIES The two largest oil sands mining operations are run by Syncrude Canada Limited and Suncor Energy . Albian Sands is a smaller project owned by Shell Canada . Major producing or planned developments in the Athabasca Oil Sands include the following projects :
SEE ALSO REFERENCES EXTERNAL LINKS
|
|
|