Oil Sands

Oil sands, also known as tar sands, or extra heavy oil, are naturally occurring mixtures of sand or clay, water and an extremely dense and viscous form of petroleum called bitumen. Oil  are found in large amounts throughout the world, but are found in extremely large quantities in Canada, especially the northeastern portion of the province of Alberta, and in Venezuela.

Second only to Saudi Arabia's reserves, Canada's oil sands deposits were described by Time magazine as “Canada's greatest buried treasure,” which “could satisfy the world's demand for petroleum for the next century.” There are an estimated 315 billion barrels of potentially recoverable oil in Alberta's bituminous sands, with an estimated 173 billion barrels of oil proven to be recoverable with today's technology.

The Canadian oil sands are beneath about 140,000 square kilometres of boreal forest (with at least 650 square kilometres already disturbed by oil sands surface mining and steam-assisted gravity drainage activity).  These disturbances occupy an area larger than the state of Florida, twice the size of New Brunswick, and more than four and half times the size of Vancouver Island. Only about two percent of the initial established resource has been produced to date. Approximately 80 percent of the bitumen is recoverable by in-situ (in place) methods, with less than 20 percent recoverable by surface mining.

Environmentally, oil sands projects affects:

• the land when the bitumen is initially mined and with the creation of large toxic tailings lakes
• the water during the separation process and through the withdrawal of water mainly from the Athabasca River
• the air due to the release of carbon dioxide and other emissions
• wildlife through displacement extirpation
• human health by the release of contaminants of particular concern that include PAHs (poly-aromatic hydrocarbons), mercury, and arsenic in the lower Athabasca River system, and air pollutants