Where Oil Is Mined, Not Pumped

Categories: Do You Know?
Oil sand as the name implies are bitumen-coated sand and is composed of sand, bitumen, mineral rich clays and water. Bitumen, in its raw state, is a black, asphalt-like oil — as thick as molasses. It requires upgrading to make it transportable by pipeline and usable by conventional refineries. The upgraded bitumen product consists of naphtha, light and heavy gas oils that are combined to produce a light, sweet crude oil.

Use of oil sand is however not new. However it was not initially used as a fuel source. It was used by the local Aboriginal people a long time ago who used it to waterproof their canoes.

Oil sand deposits are found all over the world, with the largest deposits located in Venezuela and Alberta, Canada. Together with conventional oil, oil produced from oil sand makes Canada the second largest oil producing country after Saudi Arabia. The world's largest produce is in Alberta, Canada on the banks of the Athabasca River.

Conventional oil is extracted by drilling traditional wells into the ground whereas oil sand deposits are mined using strip mining techniques. Mined oil sand then undergoes an extraction process to separate the bitumen from the sand before undergoing further processing to produce crude oil.

Environmentalist had been up in arms since the extraction of oil sand began. The energy- intensive mining process spews vast volumes of carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, contributing to gases that scientists say play a big role in global warming. For every barrel of synthetic oil produced in Alberta, more than 80 kg of greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere and between 3 and 5 barrels of waste water are dumped into tailing ponds. The companies say they plan to eventually fill all the pits and are planting trees. But they say the waste ponds -- filled with water, sand and petroleum byproducts -- will take years to settle. Yet such re-filling is not without hazards. Officials of the government agency Environment Canada said in a recent interview that in the past five years, they have taken 21 enforcement actions against oil-sands companies for such violations as releasing prohibited contaminants into the air and water.

In Alberta, this form of oil extraction completely destroys the boreal forest, the bogs, the rivers as well as the natural landscape. The boreal forest ecosystem is the contiguous green belt of conifer and deciduous trees that encircles a large portion of the Northern Hemisphere. In North America, the boreal forest stretches across most of northern Canada and into Alaska. It is important as the "great lung" of North America, and it manages to do what the rain forest of the Amazon does but with only the fraction of the flora and fauna. The mining industry believes that the boreal forest will eventually colonize the reclaimed lands, yet 30 years after the opening of the first open pit mine near Fort McMurray, Alberta, no land is considered by the Alberta Government as having been "restored."

The environmentalists also argued that the $22 billion invested represents an enormous step in the wrong direction, as this will prolong North America's addiction to oil. This will lead to ever increasing demand for oil instead.

Reference Oil Sand: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Reference Boreal Forest: [1] [2] [3] [4]