Responsible Canadian Energy™ Oil Sands Progress Report 

Responsible Canadian Energy™
Oil Sands Progress Report

For the year ended December 31, 2009 
This report has been produced in conjunction with the Responsible Canadian Energy Progress Report for the year ended December 31, 2009, which provides information on the environmental, health, safety and social performance of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) membership, representing more than 90 per cent of the oil and gas produced within Canada. It takes an in-depth look at the performance of CAPP members operating in Canada's oil sands industry.

Canada's Oil Sands

Canada has roughly 174 billion barrels of oil that can be recovered with today’s technology, the third largest reserves of oil in the world after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia (Rankings as of January 2011). Of that number, 169 billion barrels are located in the oil sands. Oil sands are a mixture of sand, water, clay and bitumen – oil that is too heavy or thick to flow or be pumped without being diluted or heated. Canada’s oil sands are found in three deposits: the Athabasca deposit in Alberta and part of Saskatchewan and the Peace River and Cold Lake deposits in Alberta. The largest quantity is found in the Athabasca deposit.

There are two different methods of producing oil from the oil sands: open-pit mining and in situ (Latin, meaning “in place”). Bitumen that is close to the surface is mined. Bitumen located deeper underground is produced in situ using specialized extraction techniques.

Open-pit mining is similar to many coal mining operations – large shovels scoop the oil sands into trucks that then take it to crushers where the large clumps of earth are broken down for processing, the various components are separated and the bitumen is ultimately upgraded into crude oil.

About 20 per cent of the oil sands can be recovered through open-pit mining. The mineable oil sands deposits comprise only about three per cent of the total surface area underlain by oil sands. Eighty per cent of oil sands reserves (which underlie approximately 97 per cent of the total oil sands surface area) are recoverable using in situ technology with limited surface disturbance.

The majority of in situ operations use steam assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD. This method involves pumping steam underground through a horizontal well to liquefy the bitumen that is then pumped to the surface through a second well. Advances in technology, such as directional drilling, enable in situ operations to drill multiple wells (sometimes more than 20) from a single location, reducing the surface disturbance.

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