Alberta is starting to be ranked as one of the world’s major petroleum reserves.
Alberta’s oil sands fields cover an area the size of Florida; the oil is very heavy and so near the surface in spots that kicking the ground can constitute exploring. Yet most of the reserves are too deep for surface mining, and recovering the oil is difficult because it is in the form of bitumen, a thick crude oil mixed with sand. Before it can be refined into products such as gasoline, it must be mined, extracted, and upgraded.
The good news is that thanks to improved technology, recovery rates for oil sands now stand at over 90 percent (higher than for conventional oil fields), which offsets the higher initial production costs.
In 2003, the International Energy Agency forecast that production of oil from fields in the province, then about 1 million barrels per day, will increase more than fivefold by 2030 and require $92 billion of investment. This development is well under way.
