In Situ Development

In the early 1980s, commercial in situ oil sands projects started to replace the AOSTRA-sponsored in situ extraction and refining pilot plants. Commercial development progressed from the test pilot plants for four main reasons. First, the industry had experienced technical successes with deep oil sands bitumen extraction at AOSTRA pilot projects. Second, relatively small-scale test plants were less of a financial risk and quicker to bring on stream than the earlier surface-mining mega-projects of the 1960s and 1970s. Those projects, Great Canadian Oil Sands and Syncrude, had huge costs associated with their development. Third, Alberta and the federal government had established economic encouragements for in situ research and development through AOSTRA and federal initiatives. Fourth, world oil prices were still high, which meant higher potential profits for petroleum industry companies willing to invest in in situ oil sand production. Together, these four factors led to a dramatic flurry of oil sands activity at Alberta’s in situ plants.

The three-part process of oil sands drilling, recording results, and map-making has helped define all of Alberta’s major oil sands areas, large and small.

As petroleum industry companies have drilled for oil and gas, geologists have used their findings to map and define important underground deposits. The 1961 description of the deposit surrounding Cold Lake in east central Alberta was largely a result of exploration by Imperial Oil. Similarly, when Shell drilled in the Peace River area between 1941 and 1947, the company’s efforts confirmed that bitumen was present in large volumes as a major deposit.

Shell, Imperial Oil and British Petroleum were the first companies to experiment in Alberta’s deeper oil sands. Each began in situ pilots in the 1960s. Encouraged by the creation and support of AOSTRA during the 1970s, other petroleum companies joined these frontrunners in setting up in situ oil sands projects. By the end of the decade in situ facilities dotted Alberta’s major oil sands deposits, with projects at the Cold Lake deposit at various locations, including Wolf Lake, Elk Point and Lindbergh. By 1992, around thirty in situ projects operated in Alberta. Together, they produced nearly 125,000 barrels of bitumen per day, or about 7.5% of Canadian oil production. In 2012, Alberta’s in situ production surpassed its mined oil sands production for the first time.