Heavy Oil & Oil Sands Bitumen

Canada's vast oil sands are the third largest in the world, behind Saudi Arabia and Venesuela. Located in northeast Alberta, the oil sands produce more than 232 100 cubic metres per day, with a forecasted increase to over 593 000 cubic metres per day by 2025.

• Canada's oil sands are estimated to contain at least 26.9 billion cubic metres of bitumen that can be recovered and refined with current technology.
• Oil sands and heavy oil accounted for about 51 per cent of Canada's total oil production in 2010.
• Heavy oil and raw bitumen production exceeded light and medium conventional oil production for the first time in 2001.

Production is increasing rapidly, as is capital investment.

• Spending on oil sands projects totalled more than $12 billion in 2010.
• There is close to $112 billion in oil sands projects underway or proposed through 2012
• As of December 2010, there were 95 active oil sands projects in Alberta. Of these, six are mining projects; the remaining projects use various in situ (in place) recovery methods.

Of the remaining established reserves about 20 per cent of Alberta's oil sands resource can be recovered by surface mining and 80 per cent, is considered recoverable by in situ methods.

Recovery Methods

There are two main approaches to oil sands and heavy oil development; in-situ and mining. The method used depends on several factors including; fluid characteristics, rock properties and reservoir depth.

In-situ processes are employed in deeper deposits. They extract the bitumen from the sand by injecting steam, or sometimes fluids. The bitumen becomes mobile and is produced to surface through wells drilled into the deposit. In-situ methods vary from 18 to 60 per cent efficiency depending on such factors as the geological characteristics and complexity of the formation, and the fluid characteristics of the heavy oil such as viscosity and density. In-situ processes have a much smaller footprint on the land than mining projects.

Surface mining is used for shallower bitumen deposits. Overburden is first stripped off to expose the bitumen formation and the oil sands are mined. The oil sands are then conveyed to a cleaning facility where the sand is mixed with warm water and chemicals to separate out the bitumen. Surface mining can recover 90 per cent of the bitumen-in-place by surface.

Heavy Oil & Oil Sands Bitumen - Resource Center