Conventional Crude

Alberta's remaining established reserves of conventional crude total 593 million cubic metres, or 82 percent of Canadian on-shore reserves. Production from conventional sources totaled 57.2 million cubic metres in 1998. 

As reserves decline, greater efforts are being made to improve production from existing reservoirs. Water injection, or secondary recovery, is the most common enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technique, but increased attention is being given to advanced or tertiary methods, such as miscible flood (injecting natural gas liquids which act as a solvent), to recover additional oil. 

More than 45 EOR projects operating in Alberta in 1988 were credited with producing an additional 18.3 thousand cubic metres per day.