The Canadian oil sands (or tar sands) are a large area of petroleum extraction from bitumen
Asphalt
Asphalt, also known as bitumen is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product; it is a substance classed as a pitch. Until the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used. The word is derived fr…
Fort McMurray
Fort McMurray is a population centre, technically classified as an urban service area, in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo in Alberta, Canada. It is located in northeast Alberta, in the middle of the Athabasca oil sands, surrounded by boreal forest. It has played a significant role in th…
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city anchors the north end of what Statistics Canada …
Where are oil sands found in Canada?
How deep are oil sands in Canada?
What is the largest oil deposit in Canada?
Why is bitumen called tar sands?
Why are oil sands important to Canada?
Where is bitumen refined?
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What are oil sands?
Oil sand is a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay or other minerals, water and bitumen, which is a heavy and extremely viscous oil. It must be processed before it can be used by refineries to produce fuels such as gasoline and diesel.
Where are oil sands?
Oil sands deposits are found in dozens of countries throughout the world. The main deposits are found within Cretaceous rocks in Venezuela and Canada.
What is oil sands and how does it work?
Oil sands are a loose sand deposit which contain a very viscous form of petroleum known as bitumen. Oil sands are actually found all over the world, and are sometimes referred to as tar sands or bituminous sands.
What are oil sands where are they found in Canada?
The vast majority of Canada's oil is produced in Alberta. Perhaps surprisingly, the oil sands don't actually have any oil per se. Instead, a huge area about the size of Florida or Wisconsin north and east of Edmonton, Alberta, contains a tarry bitumen mixed with sand that is mined from underneath the boreal forest.
How much oil is left in the oil sands?
Alberta's oil sands has the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world, after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Alberta's oil sands' proven reserves equal about 165.4 billion barrels (bbl). Crude bitumen production (mined and in situ) totaled about 2.8 million barrels per day (bbl/d) in 2017.
How much of the US oil comes from tar sands?
While tar sands have been in production since the late 1960s, and currently account for about 5 percent of all U.S. gasoline, production has been scaling up—which could have serious consequences for the air, water, and climate.
Does the US use tar sands oil?
America imports some tar sands oil, but expanding U.S. dependence on this polluting fuel is not in our national interest.
What products are made from oil sands?
There are actually only three marketable crude oil blends derived from the oil sands: Dilbit, Synbit and Synthetic Crude. Dilbit is a relatively clean bitumen (containing less than 0.5% water and solids) diluted with condensate, in the order of 20 to 40% by volume.
How do you get oil out of oil sands?
Open Pit Mining Currently, 20% of oil sands reserves are accessible via mining techniques. Large shovels scoop the oil sand into trucks which then move it to crushers where the large clumps of earth are processed. Once the oil sand is crushed, hot water is added so it can be pumped to the extraction plant.
Is tar sands oil used for gasoline?
Tar sands (referred to as oil sands in Canada) are a combination of clay, sand, water, and bitumen, a heavy, black, asphalt-like hydrocarbon. Bitumen from tar sands can be upgraded to synthetic crude oil and refined to make asphalt, gasoline, jet fuel, and value-added chemicals.
Who buys Canada's tar sands oil?
Saudi ArabiaSaudi Arabia bought into Canada's two biggest tar sands/oil sands companies, Norway's sovereign wealth fund jumped ship, and the World Economic Forum highlighted the slow pace of carbon reductions in the Canadian oil and gas industry, as the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic continues to roil global fossil ...
Who owns Canadian oil sands?
Suncor EnergyCanadian Oil Sands / Parent organizationSuncor Energy is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 252nd-largest public company in the world. Wikipedia
Where are Alberta's oil sands located?
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada – roughly centred on the boomtown of Fort McMurray.
Does the US use tar sands oil?
America imports some tar sands oil, but expanding U.S. dependence on this polluting fuel is not in our national interest.
Where are most of the oil deposits found?
Oil reserves are found all over the world. However, some have produced more oil than others. The top oil producing countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, Iran, and China. In the United States, petroleum is produced in 31 states.
Why are the oil sands located in Alberta?
Alberta's oil sands were formed millions of years ago, as tiny marine creatures died and drifted to the sea floor and were covered by layers of sediment that exerted enough pressure and temperatures to transform the organic matter into oil. Over millions of years, that oil became trapped in thick layers of sand.
Oil sands facts and statistics | Alberta.ca
Contact. Connect with Oil Sands, Coal and Mineral Operations: Hours: 8:15 am to 4:30 pm (open Monday to Friday, closed statutory holidays) Email: Oil Sands Royalty Project Applications and Compliance [email protected] Oil Sands Royalty Administration [email protected] Oil Sands Royalty Information Management [email protected] Oil Sands Tenure [email protected]
Canada’s Tar Sands: Destruction So Vast and Deep It Challenges the ...
Fossil Fuels Canada’s Tar Sands: Destruction So Vast and Deep It Challenges the Existence of Land and People Oil companies have replaced Indigenous people’s traditional lands with mines that ...
What is oil sand?
Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen, a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum . Significant bitumen deposits are reported in Canada, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Venezuela.
How are oil sands extracted?
Except for a fraction of the extra-heavy oil or bitumen which can be extracted by conventional oil well technology, oil sands must be produced by strip mining or the oil made to flow into wells using sophisticated in-situ techniques. These methods usually use more water and require larger amounts of energy than conventional oil extraction. While much of Canada's oil sands are being produced using open-pit mining, approximately 90% of Canadian oil sands and all of Venezuela's oil sands are too far below the surface to use surface mining.
What is the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin?
The oil sands of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB) are a result of the formation of the Canadian Rocky Mountains by the Pacific Plate overthrusting the North American Plate as it pushed in from the west, carrying the formerly large island chains which now compose most of British Columbia. The collision compressed the Alberta plains and raised the Rockies above the plains, forming mountain ranges. This mountain building process buried the sedimentary rock layers which underlie most of Alberta to a great depth, creating high subsurface temperatures, and producing a giant pressure cooker effect that converted the kerogen in the deeply buried organic-rich shales to light oil and natural gas. These source rocks were similar to the American so-called oil shales, except the latter have never been buried deep enough to convert the kerogen in them into liquid oil.
Why did oil sands increase?
Oil sands productions expand and prosper as the global price of oil increased to peak highs because of the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1990 Persian Gulf crisis and war, the 11 September 2001 attacks, and the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Why is Venezuela's oil production declining?
Despite the fact that the Orinoco oil sands contain extra-heavy oil which is easier to produce than Canada's similarly sized reserves of bitumen, Venezuela's oil production has been declining in recent years because of the country's political and economic problems, while Can ada's has been increasing .
What are the two countries with the largest oil reserves?
Geology. See also: Petroleum Geology, Oil reserves in Canada, and Oil reserves in Venezuela. The world's largest deposits of oil sands are in Venezuela and Canada . The geology of the deposits in the two countries is generally rather similar.
How deep are the Orinoco deposits?
In Venezuela, the Orinoco Belt oil sands range from 350 to 1,000 m (1,000 to 3,000 ft) deep and no surface outcrops exist.
What are Oil Sands?
Oil sands, also known as "tar sands," are sediments or sedimentary rocks composed of sand, clay minerals, water , and bitumen. The oil is in the form of bitumen, a very heavy liquid or sticky black solid with a low melting temperature. Bitumen typically makes up about 5 to 15% of the deposit.
Where is the most oil sand found?
Most of the world's oil sand resources are located in Alberta, Canada. The Alberta Energy and Utility Board estimates that these contain about 1.6 trillion barrels of oil - about 14% of all of the world's total oil resource. The largest deposit is the Athabasca Oil Sands [1]. ADVERTISEMENT.
How is the Oil Removed?
The method used to extract bitumen from an oil sand depends upon how deeply the oil sand is buried. If the oil sand is deeply buried, wells must be drilled to extract the bitumen. If the oil sand is close to the surface, it will be mined and hauled to a processing plant for extraction.
What are the environmental impacts of oil sands?
These include: greenhouse gas emissions, land disturbance, destruction of wildlife habitat, and degradation of local water quality.
How is bitumen extracted from oil sand?
Production by Drilling. Bitumen is removed from deeply buried oil sands by drilling wells - a process known as "in-situ recovery.". Several wells are drilled down into the oil sand. Then steam and chemicals are pumped down one well. The hot steam and chemicals soften the bitumen, reduce its viscosity, and flush it to extraction wells ...
What is the largest oil sands deposit in the world?
The Athabasca Oil Sands are the largest oil sands deposit in the world. It is the second-largest accumulation of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia. Image by NASA / Earth Observatory. Enlarge image.
Why are surface mined deposits successful?
The surface-mined deposits there can be successful when oil prices are high but in financial trouble when oil prices fall. They are also challenged by environmental concerns which include: air quality, land use, and water availability. Information Sources.
Where are oil sands found in Canada?
Canada’s oil sands are located almost exclusively in northern Alberta in three deposits that lie in the McMurray Formation, a layer of shale, sandstone and oil sand, formed during the Cretaceous period.
How big is the Athabasca oil sands?
It spans an area of about 93,000 sq km (35,908 sq. mi.) and can be as thick as 150 m (492 ft.) in some places.
How many barrels of oil are in Alberta?
mi.) of the province, larger than the area of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick combined. Collectively, Alberta’s oil sands contain about an estimated 168 billion barrels of oil.
What Are Oil Sands?
Oil sands, or tar sands, are sand and rock material that contain crude bitumen — a dense, viscous form of crude oil. Bitumen is too thick to flow on its own, so extraction methods are necessary. Bitumen is extracted and processed using two methods: mining and in-situ recovery.
When did oil sands start?
Oil sands operators must develop a plan to reclaim the land and have this approved by the government. Since oil sands operations began in Canada in the 1960s , just 8% of total mining area has been reclaimed or is in the process of reclamation. 2 .
What are the environmental impacts of oil sands?
The environmental impact of extracting oil sands from Alberta's oil fields has led environmentalists to object to the oil pipeline that connects the country with the United States.
How to extract oil from oil sand?
Process of Extracting Oil From Oil Sands. In surface mining oil sands, clearing large land areas of trees and brush is the first step. The topsoil and clay are removed to expose the oil sand. This surface mining method uses large trucks and sho vels to remove the sand, which can have a volume of anywhere from 1% to 20% of actual bitumen.
How much oil does Canada have?
Canada has an estimated 171 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, of which 166.3 billion barrels are found in Alberta's oil sands. At the end of 2014, Canada ranked third in the world in proven reserves after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. 1 This means oil sands are a significant component of Canada's economy in terms of investment, employment, ...
Is oil sands harmful?
However, the process to extract it is much more expensive and environmentally harmful as compared to other methods, such as oil rigs. Canada has the third-largest proven oil reserves after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. 1 .
Is in situ mining more expensive than surface mining?
The in situ method is more costly than the surface mining method, but it is less damaging to the environment, requiring only a few hundred meters of land and a nearby water source to operate. After drilling holes, a mining solution is pumped into the soil.
Who owns the oil sands?
The 120-odd active oil sands projects are owned by major oil companies from Canada and around the world, including the U.S. and China. Together, the companies pump out 2.6 million barrels every day, virtually all of which is shipped to U.S. refineries. What’s shipped is diluted bitumen, not crude oil. Bitumen is too thick to pump, so light crude oil and chemicals are added.
Where is the oil sands site in Alberta?
A swath of boreal forest is stripped away to reveal the bitumen-laced ground at the Fort Hills Suncor oil sands site near Fort McKay , Alberta. The area will soon become a gaping strip mine as the bitumen is trucked away for processing into petroleum products. Photograph By Ian Willms.
Where are tailings ponds?
Large enough to be seen from space, tailings ponds in Alberta’s oil sands region are some of the biggest human-made structures on Earth. They contain a toxic slurry of heavy metals and hydrocarbons from the bitumen separation process. Photograph By Ian Willms. By Stephen Leahy. Photographs by Ian Willms.
What is the fifth largest oil producing country in the world?
If Alberta , with its population of four million people, were a country, it would be the fifth largest oil-producing nation. While it produces conventional oil, most comes from the Alberta oil sands, the world’s third largest proven oil reserve at 170 billion barrels.
Why do oil companies cut lines in the forest?
The oil industry uses cut lines in the forest like this one to search for underground resources and build infrastructure for future development.
How long has Canada produced oil?
Canada has produced oil since the 1850s. Oil is the country’s biggest export earner, and although production has boomed even more in the U.S. lately, thanks to shale fracking, oil is a much bigger part of the Canadian economy. The vast majority of Canada’s oil is produced in Alberta.
Where is the majority of Canada's oil produced?
The vast majority of Canada’s oil is produced in Alberta. Perhaps surprisingly, the oil sands don’t actually have any oil per se. Instead, a huge area about the size of Florida or Wisconsin north and east of Edmonton, Alberta, contains a tarry bitumen mixed with sand that is mined from underneath the boreal forest.
Where are oil sands located in Canada?
Where are oil sands located in Alberta? Canada’s oil sands industry is primarily located in three regions within Alberta and Saskatchewan’s provinces, around the Athabasca River basin, Cold Lake and Peace River. Together, they cover a combined area of over 142,000 square kilometres.6.
What is oil sand?
Oil sands occur naturally as a mixture of bitumen, sand, clay and water. Bitumen is more expensive to extract than conventional oil. It needs steam to be pumped, as deep as one kilometre, to liquefy the bitumen and bring it to the surface. It then has to be processed further to be ready for use.10.
What is the most destructive oil operation in the world?
Canada’s oil sands in Alberta have been described as the “world’s most destructive oil operation” for their environmental impact.1 However, the oil sands contribute significantly to the Canadian economy, and they employ over 100,000 people in the sector.2 But, its environmental impact certainly dwarfs the economic upside.
How much sludge is in oil sands?
These are stored in tailings ponds that have now accumulated nearly 1.3 trillion litres of sludge.
How much oil does Alberta have?
Alberta has oil reserves in the ground consisting of approximately 170 billion barrels of oil.3 The industry currently pumps out around 2.8 million barrels per day.4
What is the problem with mining oil sands?
One major problem with mining oil sands is that for every barrel of oil extracted, over a barrel and a half of a thick toxic sludge is produced. Even worse, these ponds are now leaking their toxic by-product into the local environment.
How many acres of trees have been cleared by oil sands?
But, critics say that the industrial development of oil sands and forest fires have cleared or degraded almost two million acres of trees over the past 20 years.7.
Where are oil sands found in Canada?
Canada’s oil sands are found in three regions within Alberta and Saskatchewan: Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River, which combined cover an area more than 142,000 square kilometres (km2). Contrary to some exaggerated reports, the current active mining footprint is about 1,030 km2 – an area slightly larger than the City of Calgary.
How deep are oil sands in Canada?
About 20% of Canada’s oil sands deposits are within 70 metres (200 feet) of the surface and can be recovered with surface mining, but most oil sands reservoirs are deeper and require drilling and production methods called “in situ,” which creates much less surface land disturbance and mining.
What is the largest oil deposit in Canada?
Canada’s oil sands are the largest deposit of crude oil on the planet. The oil sands (or tar sands as they are sometimes inaccurately referred to), are a mixture of sand, water, clay and a type of oil called bitumen. Thanks to innovation and technology we can recover oil from the oil sands, providing energy security for the future.
Why is bitumen called tar sands?
For that reason, this resource is sometimes called “tar sands,” but that term is incorrect because bitumen and tar ( asphalt) are different compounds. “Oil sands” correctly identifies the end product derived from bitumen: crude oil.
Why are oil sands important to Canada?
Canada’s oil sands are an important part of Canada’s economy and help create jobs across the country, both directly and indirectly.
Where is bitumen refined?
Once extracted, the bitumen is refined. Some refining is done within the oil sands region or other Alberta refine ries, but most is sent to refineries all over North America via pipeline, rail or marine transport.
Overview
Geology
The world's largest deposits of oil sands are in Venezuela and Canada. The geology of the deposits in the two countries is generally rather similar. They are vast heavy oil, extra-heavy oil, and/or bitumen deposits with oil heavier than 20°API, found largely in unconsolidated sandstones with similar properties. "Unconsolidated" in this context means that the sands have high porosity, no s…
History
The exploitation of bituminous deposits and seeps dates back to Paleolithic times. The earliest known use of bitumen was by Neanderthals, some 40,000 years ago. Bitumen has been found adhering to stone tools used by Neanderthals at sites in Syria. After the arrival of Homo sapiens, humans used bitumen for construction of buildings and waterproofing of reed boats, among other uses. In ancient Egypt, the use of bitumen was important in preparing mummies.
Cost of oil sands petroleum-mining operations
In their May 2019 comparison of the "cost of supply curve update" in which the Norway-based Rystad Energy—an "independent energy research and consultancy"—ranked the "worlds total recoverable liquid resources by their breakeven price", Rystad reported that the average breakeven price for oil from the oil sands was US$83 in 2019, making it the most expensive to produce, compared to all other "significant oil producing regions" in the world. The International …
Nomenclature
The name tar sands was applied to bituminous sands in the late 19th and early 20th century. People who saw the bituminous sands during this period were familiar with the large amounts of tar residue produced in urban areas as a by-product of the manufacture of coal gas for urban heating and lighting. The word "tar" to describe these natural bitumen deposits is really a misnomer, since, chemically speaking, tar is a human-made substance produced by the destructiv…
Production
Bituminous sands are a major source of unconventional oil, although only Canada has a large-scale commercial oil sands industry. In 2006, bitumen production in Canada averaged 1.25 Mbbl/d (200,000 m /d) through 81 oil sands projects. 44% of Canadian oil production in 2007 was from oil sands. This proportion was (as of 2008) expected to increase in coming decades as bitumen production grows while conventional oil production declines, although due to the 2008 economi…
Methods of extraction
Except for a fraction of the extra-heavy oil or bitumen which can be extracted by conventional oil well technology, oil sands must be produced by strip mining or the oil made to flow into wells using sophisticated in-situ techniques. These methods usually use more water and require larger amounts of energy than conventional oil extraction. While much of Canada's oil sands are being produ…
Energy balance
Approximately 1.0–1.25 gigajoules (280–350 kWh) of energy is needed to extract a barrel of bitumen and upgrade it to synthetic crude. As of 2006, most of this is produced by burning natural gas. Since a barrel of oil equivalent is about 6.117 gigajoules (1,699 kWh), its EROEI is 5–6. That means this extracts about 5 or 6 times as much energy as is consumed. Energy efficiency is expected to improve to an average of 900 cubic feet (25 m ) of natural gas or 0.945 gigajoules (…
What Are Oil Sands?
Understanding Oil Sands
- The end product from oil sands is very similar to, if not better than, that of conventional oil which uses oil rigs for extraction. Intensive mining, extraction, and upgrading processes mean that oil from oil sands typically costs several times more to produce than using conventional methods and is environmentally destructive. The process of extracting bitumen from oil sands results in signifi…
Process of Extracting Oil from Oil Sands
- In surface mining oil sands, clearing large land areas of trees and brush is the first step. The topsoil and clay are removed to expose the oil sand. This surface mining method uses large trucks and shovels to remove the sand, which can have a volume of anywhere from 1% to 20% of actual bitumen. After processing and upgrading, the results travel to refineries for refining into ga…
Environmental Protection and Oil Sands
- The environmental impact of extracting oil sands from Alberta's oil fields has led environmentalists to object to the oil pipeline that connects the country with the United States. Organizations, such as Canada's Oil Sands Innovation Alliance (COSIA), are focused on reducing the environmental impact of mining oil sands for oil. They provide funding for research initiatives related to mitigatin…