The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of oil sands rich in bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market.
As of 2023, Canada's oil sands industry, along with Western Canada and offshore petroleum facilities near Newfoundland and Labrador, continued to increase production and were projected to increase by an estimated 10% in 2024 representing a potential record high at the end of the year of approximately 5.3 million barrels per day (bpd). The surge in production is attributed mainly to growth in Alberta's oilsands. The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipelinethe only oil pipeline to the West Coastwill further facilitate this increase, with its capacity set to increase significantly, to 890,000 barrels per day from 300,000 bpd currently. Despite this growth, there are warnings that it might be short-lived, with production potentially plateauing after 2024. Canada's anticipated increase in oil output exceeds that of other major producers like the United States, and the country is poised to become a significant driver of global crude oil production growth in 2024. The exploitation of these resources has stirred debates regarding economic development, energy security, and environmental impacts, particularly emissions from the oilsands, prompting discussions around emissions regulations for the oil and gas sector.
The Athabasca oil sands, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits oil sand deposits lie under of boreal forest and muskeg (peat bogs) according to Government of Alberta's Ministry of Energy, Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP).
History
The Athabasca oil sands are named after the Athabasca River which cuts through the heart of the deposit, and traces of the heavy oil are readily observed on the river banks. Historically, the bitumen was used by the indigenous Cree and Dene Aboriginal peoples to waterproof their canoes.Mackenzie, Sir Alexander (1970). "The Journals and Letters of Alexander Mackenzie". Edited by W. Kaye Lamb. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, p. 129, . The oil deposits are located within the boundaries of Treaty 8, and several First Nations of the area are involved with the sands.
Early history
The Athabasca oil sands first came to the attention of European fur traders in 1719 when Wa-pa-su, a Cree trader, brought a sample of bituminous sands to the Hudson's Bay Company post at York Factory on Hudson Bay where Henry Kelsey was the manager. In 1778, Peter Pond, another fur trader and a founder of the rival North West Company, became the first European to see the Athabasca deposits after exploring the Methye Portage which allowed access to the rich fur resources of the Athabasca River system from the Hudson Bay watershed.
In 1788, fur trader Alexander Mackenzie, after whom the Mackenzie River was later named, traveled along routes to both the Arctic and Pacific Ocean wrote: "At about from the fork (of the Athabasca and Clearwater Rivers) are some bituminous fountains into which a pole of long may be inserted without the least resistance. The bitumen is in a fluid state and when mixed with gum, the resinous substance collected from the spruce fir, it serves to gum the Indians' canoes." He was followed in 1799 by mapmaker David Thompson and in 1819 by British Naval officer John Franklin.
John Richardson did the first serious scientific assessment of the oil sands in 1848 on his way north to search for Franklin's lost expedition. The first government-sponsored survey of the oil sands was initiated in 1875 by John Macoun, and in 1883, G. C. Hoffman of the Geological Survey of Canada tried separating the bitumen from oil sand with the use of water and reported that it separated readily. In 1888, Robert Bell, the director of the Geological Survey of Canada, reported to a Senate Committee that "The evidence ... points to the existence in the Athabasca and Mackenzie valleys of the most extensive petroleum field in America, if not the world."
Count Alfred von Hammerstein (1870–1941), who arrived in the region in 1897, promoted the Athabasca oil sands for over forty years, taking photos with descriptive titles such as "Tar Sands and Flowing Asphaltum in the Athabasca District," that are now in the National Library and National Archives Canada. Photos of the Athabasca oil sands were also featured in Canadian writer and adventurer, Agnes Deans Cameron's, best-selling book The New North which recounted her roundtrip to the Arctic Ocean. Her photographs were reproduced in 2011–2012 in an exhibit at the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, and included photos of Count Alfred Von Hammerstein's oil drill works along the Athabasca River.
In 1926, Karl Clark of the University of Alberta received a patent for a hot water separation process which was the forerunner of today's thermal extraction processes. Several attempts to implement it had varying degrees of success.
Project Oilsand
Project Oilsand was a 1958 proposal to exploit the Athabasca oil sands using the underground detonation of nuclear explosives;Petroleum History Society Archives Newsletter, June 2005, retrieved October 28, 2012. hypothetically, the heat and pressure created by an underground detonation would boil the bitumen deposits, reducing their viscosity to the point that standard oilfield techniques could be used. The plan was discussed in the October 1976 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.October Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists October 1976, p. 23. A patent was granted for the intended process in 1964."Process for stimulating petroliferous subterranean formations with contained nuclear explosions" (PDF). The nuclear heating option is considered a forerunner to some of the conventional heating methods used to extract tar sands oil.
In April 1959, the Federal Mines Department approved Project Oilsand. However, it was subsequently cancelled in 1962.
Great Canadian Oil Sands
The oil sands, which are typically thick and sit on top of relatively flat limestone, are relatively easy to access. They lie under of waterlogged muskeg, of clay and barren sand. As a result of the easy accessibility, the world's first oil-sands mine was in the Athabasca oil sands.
Commercial production of oil from the Athabasca oil sands began in 1967, with the opening of the Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) plant in Fort McMurray. It was the first operational oil sands project in the world, owned and operated by the American parent company, Sun Oil Company. When the US$240 million plant officially opened with a capacity of , it marked the beginning of commercial development of the Athabasca oil sands. In 2013 McKenzie-Brown listed industrialist J. Howard Pew as one of the six visionaries who built the Athabasca oil sands. By the time of his death in 1971, the Pew family were ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the half-dozen wealthiest families in America. The Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited (then a subsidiary of Sun Oil Company but now incorporated into an independent company known as Suncor Energy Inc.) produced of synthetic crude oil.
Oil crisis
The true size of the Canadian oil sands deposits became known in the 1970s. The Syncrude mine is now the largest mine (by area) in the world, with mines potentially covering . (Although there is oil underlying , which may be disturbed by drilling and in situ extraction, only may potentially be surface mined, and has to date been mined.)
Development was inhibited by declining world oil prices, and the second mine, operated by the Syncrude consortium, did not begin operating until 1978, after the 1973 oil crisis sparked investor interest. However, the price of oil subsided afterwards and although the 1979 energy crisis caused oil prices to peak again, during the 1980s, oil prices declined to very low levels causing considerable retrenchment in the oil industry.
In 1979, Sun formed Suncor by merging its Canadian refining and retailing interests with Great Canadian Oil Sands and its conventional oil and gas interests. In 1981, the Government of Ontario purchased a 25% stake in the company but divested it in 1993. In 1995, Sun Oil also divested its interest in the company, although Suncor maintained the Sunoco retail brand in Canada. Suncor took advantage of these two divestitures to become an independent, widely held public company.
Suncor continued to grow and continued to produce more and more oil from its oil sands operations regardless of fluctuating market prices, and eventually became bigger than its former parent company. In 2009, Suncor acquired the formerly Canadian government owned oil company, Petro-Canada, which turned Suncor into the largest petroleum company in Canada and one of the biggest Canadian companies. Suncor Energy is now a Canadian company completely unaffiliated with its former American parent company. Sun Oil Company became known as Sunoco, but later left the oil production and refining business, and has since become a retail gasoline distributor owned by Energy Transfer Partners of Dallas, Texas. In Canada, Suncor Energy converted all of its Sunoco stations (which were all in Ontario) to Petro-Canada sites in order to unify all of its downstream retail operations under the Petro-Canada banner and discontinue paying licensing fees for the Sunoco brand. Nationwide, Petro-Canada's upstream product supplier and parent company is Suncor Energy. Suncor Energy continues to operate just one Sunoco retail site in Ontario.
Oil sands production in the 21st century At the turn of the 21st century, oil sands development in Canada started to take off, with an expansion at the Suncor mine, a new mine and expansion at Syncrude, and a new mine by Royal Dutch Shell associated with their new Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton. Three new large steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) projects were added – Foster Creek, Surmont, and MacKay River – by different companies, all of which have since been bought by larger companies.
Shell Canada's third mine began operating in 2003. However, as a result of oil price increases since 2003, the existing mines have been greatly expanded and new ones were built.
According to the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board, 2005 production of crude bitumen in the Athabasca oil sands was as follows:
{| class="wikitable" |+2005 production of crude bitumen !Mine !(m3/day) !Barrels per day |- !Suncor mine |style="text-align:right"|31,000 |style="text-align:right"|195,000 |- !Syncrude mine |style="text-align:right"|41,700 |style="text-align:right"|262,000 |- !Shell Canada mine |style="text-align:right"|26,800 |style="text-align:right"|169,000 |- !In situ projects |style="text-align:right"|21,300 |style="text-align:right"|134,000 |- !Total |style="text-align:right"|120,800 |style="text-align:right"|760,000
As of 2006, oil sands production had increased to . Oil sands were by then the source of 62% of Alberta's total oil production and 47% of all oil produced in Canada. As of 2010, oil sands production had increased to over to exceed conventional oil production in Canada. 53% of this was produced by surface mining and 47% by in-situ techniques. In 2012, oil production from oil sands was .
Shale oil boom