The Alberta Oil Sands: Reserves and Long-term Supply Outlook

Alberta's oil-sands hold almost all of Canada's crude bitumen resources within one of the world's largest deposits of extra heavy crude oil. Its established reserves of crude bitumen have been favorably compared with the conventional oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. (The term established reserves refers to recoverable hydrocarbons as originally described in the report by the Joint Task Force on Uniform Reserves Terminology under the auspices of the Canadian Inter-Provincial Advisory Committee on Energy [the IPACE system]. As defined, established reserves are those reserves recoverable with current technology under present and anticipated economic conditions that are proven by drilling plus that contiguous part interpreted to exist with reasonable certainty.) Alberta's oil-sand industry has been the source of large investments since the 1960s, but investment has been particularly strong in the past decade. Crude bitumen production in Alberta has more than doubled in this period and is expected to reach more than 3 million bbl/day during the next decade, as the pace of oil-sand development accelerates. (In this chapter, volumes are expressed in barrels [bbl]). This chapter contains a forecast of the potential production from this vast resource, with consideration for reserves, markets, and the economic viability of crude bitumen production within Alberta.