The Athabasca Oil Sands

The Alberta conventional crude oil industry, Athabasca, its reserves, government policy respecting in their development, the results to the present, current activities, and the outlook for the future are discussed. The Energy Resources Conservation Board regulates drilling and production operations with a view to conservation and prevention of waste, safety, correlative rights, and impact on the environment. The Board also administers the oil proration plan, regulates the removal of gas from Alberta, regulates oil-sands development, and administers government policy respecting the development of its oil sands. In addition, it provides technical advice to the government. Minable oil-sands reserves amount to some 34 billion bbl assuming that thick sands with less then 120 ft of overburden are surface mineable. These reserves are all in the Athabasca oil sands deposit. The reserve estimate is based upon a conservatively estimated recovery of 60% of the raw bitumen present in the sand. This is essentially the recovery currently expected by the Syncrude group. The remainder of the oil sand, over 300 billion bbl, would appear to require application of in situ recovery techniques. For these reserves, a recovery of some 40% of the crude bitumen has been assumed.