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The
Alberta Oil and Gas Industry
--Alberta is the largest producer
of oil and gas in Canada, accounting
for 82% of Canada's total hydrocarbon
production.
--Alberta has more than 45%
of Canada's established reserves
of crude oil, 100% of the country's
oil sands reserves and 85% of
its natural gas.
--The value of oil and gas produced
in Alberta in 1999 was approximately
$28 billion.
--Crude oil and gas comprise
almost 56% of Alberta's exports.
--Alberta's petroleum industry
accounts for 22% of its gross
domestic product.
--Alberta is the world's 2nd
largest natural gas exporter.
--The potential yield of Alberta's
oil sands is estimated at 1.7
trillion barrels of oil, more
than 5 times the size of Saudi
Arabia's oil reserves.
--Oil sands production accounts
for 37% of Alberta's total oil
production and is expected to
rise to 50% by 2006.
--Alberta's petroleum industry
employs almost 215,000 people
in the province.
--Petroleum deposits are found
throughout Alberta except in
the shield region in the northeast
corner of the province.
--Most petroleum resources in
the province are owned by the
Crown; private companies extract
resources through tenure agreements
with the province, known as
"sub-surface mineral rights."
These agreements give companies
the exclusive right to drill
for and extract oil and gas
in a specified area.
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Oil and Gas: Edmonton's
Founding Economy
The North Saskatchewan River's largest city
has a highly diversified economy that includes
strong sectors of transportation, aviation
and aerospace, biotechnology, science and
health research, health care services, accommodation
and food services, manufacturing, construction
and educational services. But the origins
of Edmonton's industrial base are the oil,
gas and petrochemical industries. Today,
the city continues to be recognized as the
supply and service centre of Canada's energy
sector.
• More than 80% of the province's
92,000 producing oil wells are located within
the Edmonton service area.
• As of 1999, there were almost 500
companies in the mining and oil well sector
based in the Edmonton area, with several
hundreds more supplying petroleum-related
services in the manufacturing, research
and development, engineering and environmental
fields.
• The world's largest oil sands, located
in the Northern Alberta Peace and Athabasca
areas, are dependent on Edmonton as their
service and supply centre. Research and
physical infrastructure pre-assembly for
oil sands development is centered in Edmonton.
• The Greater Edmonton Region is the
hub of Canada's pipeline transportation
system, with more than 260,000 kilometres
of Alberta's natural gas and oil pipelines
originating in Edmonton and northern Alberta.
• The Edmonton service area has 5
refineries and more than 20 major chemical
producers. Metro Edmonton's 3 petroleum
refineries are the largest in Canada.
• Greater Edmonton businesses are
recognized for their technological expertise
in 3-D geophysical survey methods, horizontal
drilling, reservoir engineering, super-heavy
oil technologies, sour gas technologies,
remote-location operation, pipeline laying
and construction in muskeg areas, and the
use of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD)
to retrieve super-heavy oil, and the Alberta
Taciuk Process (ATP) for secondary oil recovery.
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Visit
Devon's Canadian PetroleumInterpretive
Centre and Leduc Oil Well #1
Time after time, as they drilled
for oil near Edmonton in 1947,
Imperial Oil's exploration team
came up dry. But on February
13, 1947, their 134th drill
hole suddenly erupted, spurting
water, mud and black gold. The
Leduc Oil Well #1 was in
production, ushering a series
of Alberta oil and gas discoveries,
and signaling the beginning
of Edmonton's role as the service
and supply centre of Canada's
petroleum industry. At the Leduc-Woodbend
Oilfeld in the town of Devon,
on the North Saskatchewan River,
just a few kilometres southwest
of Edmonton, the Leduc/Devon
Oil Field Historical Society
has erected a replica of the
52-metre-high conventional derrick
that was used to extract oil
from the province's first oilfield.
In 1996, the Leduc site was
expanded to include the Canadian
Petroleum Interpretive Centre.
Visitors can now climb to the
drilling floor to see authentic
equipment and tools used to
drill 1.6 kilometres down into
the Devonian formation. The
Centre's displays include videos,
artifacts, photographs and scale
models related to the province's
oil history. The people and
personalities of the oil industry
are featured in the Centre's
Canadian Petroleum Hall of
Fame. |
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Diamond Discovery
in Saskatchewan's Forestry Capital
While forestry has long been the economic
foundation of the city of Prince Albert,
Saskatchewan (population 39,000) on the
lower stretches of the North Saskatchewan
River, promising diamond exploration ventures
taking place at Fort à la Corne,
65 kilometres downstream of the city, may
offer the province's forestry capital a
glittering economic future. Fort à
la Corne kimberlite - volcanic rock containing
"pipes" or veins of diamonds,
named for the city of Kimberley, where the
rock was first found - is thought to have
the highest concentration of diamondiferous
kimberlite in the world. Testing of the
Fort à la Corne field has been underway
for several years, with early results suggesting
that the Saskatchewan discovery, along with
recent diamond mine developments in the
Northwest Territories, could elevate Canada
to one of the top positions in the world
diamond industry. The opening of the Fort
à la Corne diamond mines could add
to recent economic growth in Prince Albert,
which have included a major expansion of
the Weyerhaeuser Canada Ltd. pulp and paper
complex (currently the city's largest employer),
and the construction of a $15.8 million
Saskatchewan Forestry Centre, focusing
on forestry knowledge, technology transfer
and forest-based development. |
