Oil and Natural Gas
Oil
and natural gas are non-renewable resources that form as
a result of specific environmental conditions. Oil and
natural gas were created from organisms that lived in
the water and were buried under aquatic sediments.
Millions of years of heat, pressure and chemical
reactions turned the remains into crude oil. In deeper,
hot regions underground, the process continued until
natural gas was formed. This process is similar to the
formation of coal, although it is variables such as the
original organic material and length and amount of
pressure that determine which hydrocarbon will be
produced.
Crude
oil is the liquid oil that comes out of the ground.
Crude oil is refined to produce fuel for
automobiles, airplanes, boats and trains. It is also
refined to heat homes and buildings, generate
electricity, and manufacture lubricants, plastics, and
asphalt. As you can see, crude oil plays an important
role in the daily lives of Canadians.
Bitumen is crude oil in a solid form.
When it is extracted, it is first upgraded into a
high-quality, fluid crude oil. Then it is usually
transported through pipelines to refineries, where the
refined oils that we use on a daily basis are produced.
Alberta is home to vast quantities of bitumen, with the
largest deposit found in the Athabasca oil sands near
Fort McMurray. The Athabasca oil sands extend
from surface deposits to deposits at depths of more than
760 metres, representing 209 billion cubic metres of
potentially recoverable bitumen. There are also
significant deposits at Cold Lake (35 billion cubic
metres) and Peace River (23 billion cubic metres). The
amount of bitumen in Alberta makes up more than one
third of the world's known reserves of conventional
crude oil.
In Canada, natural gas is the leading
source of heat for homes and businesses. A relatively
economical and clean energy source, it is also used to
power household appliances and generate electricity.
Natural gas deposits underlie about 40 percent of
Alberta, and reserves are estimated to total up to 6,276
billion cubic metres. As a result, Alberta produces
almost 80 percent of all of Canada’s natural gas
production.
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