John Hiemstra\'s presentation on Alberta Oil Sands. See the video from his presentation at http://cpj.blip.tv/#1036772.

1. Overview of oil sands
developments!
The Scope and the
Challenge

2. North East Alberta

5. Bitumen Deposits =140,200 sq km

6. Size…
 largest known hydrocarbon deposit
 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels in deposit
 2nd largest petroleum reserves in the world
(Saudi Arabia has largest)
 175 billion barrels of bitumen deemed
recoverable (15% of the world reserves)
 With newer technologies, up to 2.5 trillion
barrels might be recovered

8. Geographical Comparison
 larger than the state of Florida
 2 X size of New Brunswick
 4.5 X size of Vancouver Island
 greater than the entire country of Honduras
(112,088 sq. km)

10. Current production
 Currently, 1.1 million barrels bitumen/day
 about 1/3 Alberta’s total oil production
 expected to rise to 2.7 million barrels / day by
2015
 oil sands could supply Canada’s energy
needs for 475 years
 or total world needs for up to 15 years

11. Future Potential

12. Currently industry recovers 1.1 million barrels of
bitumen / day
 = about 1/3 Alberta’s total oil production
 expected to rise to 2.7 million barrels / day by
2015
 oil sands could supply Canada’s energy needs
for more than 475 years
 or total world needs for up to 15 years

13. Open pit mining method

14. Open pit mining:
 19% of reserve close to the surface
 ‘truck and shovel mining’ method
 move enough ‘overburden’ [sic] and oil sands
every 2 days to fill Toronto’s Skydome
 2 tonnes must be dug up, moved and
processed to produce 1 barrel of oil

18. Extraction, processing and end-
products
 hot water extraction technique is used to
separate bitumen from oil sands
 75% of the bitumen can be recovered from
sand

21. 70% used for transport fuels—
gasoline, diesel, jet fuel

22. Pipelines through Jasper

23. Massive tailings ponds

24. 2nd largest dam in the world

26. Sometimes directly beside the
Athabasca River

27. Forest reclamation

28. Alternative extraction methods
 81% of oil sands reserves too deep to be
open pit mined (deeper than 75 metres)
 other processes are being developed
 leading process, at the moment, are in situ
steam operations
 E.g. Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage
(SAGD).

32. Economic impacts
 Alberta GDP was $183 billion (2006)
 GDP growth rate of 6.6%
 Alberta unemployment rate 3.4 % (March 2008)
 CPI Inflation Rate 3.5 % (Jan 2008)
 Alberta’s GDP per capita was $58,394
 45% above Canadian average of $40,351
 40% above second place Ontario
 $100B investment expected between 2000-2020

33. Where are we going?