| Marie Bay | |
|---|---|
  Marie Bay | |
| Location | Melville Island |
| Coordinates | 76°13′03″N115°20′10″W / 76.21750°N 115.33611°W [1] |
| Basin countries | Canada |
| Settlements | Uninhabited |
Marie Bay is a fjord on the Northwest tip of Melville Island. [3] [4] [5] Marie Bay lies on the part of Melville Island that is in the Northwest Territories while the eastern part of the island is in Nunavut.
Oil sands deposits were found in the Marie Bay region [3] and are estimated to hold 100 to 250 million barrels of oil. [6] [7] [8]
Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen, a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum.
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen, a heavy and viscous form of petroleum, in northeastern Alberta, Canada. These reserves are one of the largest sources of unconventional oil in the world, making Canada a significant player in the global energy market.
Melville Island is an uninhabited member of the Queen Elizabeth Islands of the Arctic Archipelago. With an area of 42,149 km2 (16,274 sq mi), it is the 33rd largest island in the world and Canada's eighth largest island.
Heavy crude oil is highly viscous oil that cannot easily flow from production wells under normal reservoir conditions.
The geology of the Falkland Islands is described in several publications. The Falkland Islands are located on a projection of the Patagonian continental shelf. In ancient geological time this shelf was part of Gondwana, which around 400 million years ago broke from what is now Africa and drifted westwards relative to Africa. Studies of the seabed surrounding the islands indicated the possibility of oil. Intensive exploration began in 1996, although there had been some earlier seismic surveys in the region.
Petroleum production in Canada is a major industry which is important to the overall economy of North America. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and is the world's fourth largest oil producer and fourth largest oil exporter. In 2019 it produced an average of 750,000 cubic metres per day (4.7 Mbbl/d) of crude oil and equivalent. Of that amount, 64% was upgraded from unconventional oil sands, and the remainder light crude oil, heavy crude oil and natural-gas condensate. Most of the Canadian petroleum production is exported, approximately 600,000 cubic metres per day (3.8 Mbbl/d) in 2019, with 98% of the exports going to the United States. Canada is by far the largest single source of oil imports to the United States, providing 43% of US crude oil imports in 2015.
Wabasca is an oil field in a remote area of northern Alberta, Canada. It is the fourth largest deposit of oil sands located in Alberta, located southwest of the larger Athabasca oil sands deposit. It is also known as the Pelican Lake Oilfield.
Madagascar Oil SA is an oil company operating in Madagascar. It is the principal onshore oil company in Madagascar in terms of oil resources and land.
Canada's oil sands and heavy oil resources are among the world's great petroleum deposits. They include the vast oil sands of northern Alberta, and the heavy oil reservoirs that surround the small city of Lloydminster, which sits on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The extent of these resources is well known, but better technologies to produce oil from them are still being developed.
Exploration for petroleum in the Arctic is expensive and challenging both technically and logistically. In the offshore, sea ice can be a major factor. There have been many discoveries of oil and gas in the several Arctic basins that have seen extensive exploration over past decades but distance from existing infrastructure has often deterred development. Development and production operations in the Arctic offshore as a result of exploration have been limited, with the exception of the Barents and Norwegian seas. In Alaska, exploration subsequent to the discovery of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield has focussed on the onshore and shallow coastal waters.
Canada's early petroleum discoveries took place near population centres or along lines of penetration into the frontier.
Oil reserves in Canada were estimated at 172 billion barrels as of the start of 2015 . This figure includes the oil sands reserves that are estimated by government regulators to be economically producible at current prices using current technology. According to this figure, Canada's reserves are third only to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Over 95% of these reserves are in the oil sands deposits in the province of Alberta. Alberta contains nearly all of Canada's oil sands and much of its conventional oil reserves. The balance is concentrated in several other provinces and territories. Saskatchewan and offshore areas of Newfoundland in particular have substantial oil production and reserves. Alberta has 39% of Canada's remaining conventional oil reserves, offshore Newfoundland 28% and Saskatchewan 27%, but if oil sands are included, Alberta's share is over 98%.
Offshore drilling for oil and gas on the Atlantic coast of the United States took place from 1947 to the early 1980s. Oil companies drilled five wells in Atlantic Florida state waters and 51 exploratory wells on federal leases on the outer continental shelf of the Atlantic coast. None of the wells were completed as producing wells. All the leases have now reverted to the government.
The Oxnard Oil Field is a large and productive oil field in and adjacent to the city of Oxnard, in Ventura County, California in the United States. Its conventional oil reserves are close to exhaustion, with only an estimated one percent of the original oil recoverable with current technology remaining: 434,000 barrels (69,000 m3) out of an original 43.5 million. However, the reservoir includes an enormous deposit of tar sands, ultra-heavy oil classed as an unconventional petroleum reserve, and potentially containing 600 million barrels (95,000,000 m3) of oil equivalent, should it become economically feasible to extract. Present operators on the field include Tri-Valley Oil & Gas Co., Anterra Energy Services, Inc., Chase Production Co., and Occidental Petroleum through its Vintage Production subsidiary. As of the beginning of 2009, there were 34 active wells on the field.
The Melville Island oil sands are a large deposit of oil sands on Melville Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.
The Cold Lake oil sands are a large deposit of oil sands located near Cold Lake, Alberta. Cold Lake is east of Alberta's capital, Edmonton, near Alberta's border with Saskatchewan, and a small portion of the Cold Lake field lies in Saskatchewan.
The Bjorne Formation is a formation of sandstones and shales in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The southern edge of the formation includes petroleum reserves in Melville Island. The basin also includes Mackenzie King Island, Lougheed Island and portions of Prince Patrick Island, Borden Island, Ellef Ringnes Island, Amund Ringnes Island, and Cornwall Island.
The Beaver Lake Cree Nation is a First Nations band government located 105 kilometres (65 mi) northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, representing people of the Cree ethno-linguistic group in the area around Lac La Biche, Alberta, where the band office is currently located. Their treaty area is Treaty 6. The Intergovernmental Affairs office consults with persons on the Government treaty contacts list. There are two parcels of land reserved for the band by the Canadian Crown, Beaver Lake Indian Reserve No. 131 and Blue Quills First Nation Indian Reserve. The latter reserve is shared by six bands; Beaver Lake Cree Nations, Cold Lake First Nations, Frog Lake First Nation, Heart Lake First Nation, Kehewin Cree Nation, Saddle Lake Cree Nation.
Located in northwest-central Alberta, the Peace River oil sands deposit is the smallest of four large deposits of oil sands of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin formation.
The Canadian Arctic Rift System is a major North American geological structure extending from the Labrador Sea in the southeast through Davis Strait, Baffin Bay and the Arctic Archipelago in the northwest. It consists of a series of interconnected rifts that formed during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Extensional stresses along the entire length of the rift system have resulted in a variety of tectonic features, including grabens, half-grabens, basins and faults.
Oil shows in Mesozoic sandstones at many localities within the western basin, e.g., Marie Bay oil sands on Melville Island (Bjorne Formation)
Melville Island's coastline is gouged with many large inlets and bays, and ranges in elevation from low beaches to 300-metre cliffs. Its interior topography consists of three main sections. The first is a plateau formed by Dundas Peninsula and the two promontories between Barry Bay and Purchase Bay; the second region is a low plain in the northeast, which extends from Marie Bay east to Long Point, and from Sabine Peninsula north of the land between Eldridge Bay and Sherard Bay; and the third section is a folded upland lying between the first two regions.
The 100 million barrel tar sand deposit at Marie Bay (Trettin and Hills, 1966) on western Melville Island is held in a possible stratigraphic trap in the Bjorne Formation where conventional oil has been highly degraded by exposure at surface.
Petroleum exploration of Canada's High Arctic began with a well drilled on each of Melville, Cornwallis and Bathurst islands between 1961 and 1963. Seismic exploration however, lagged behind and Panarctic Oils Ltd. did not shoot the first line, north from Marie Bay on Melville Island until 1968.
The Marie Bay Bjorne tar sands on NW Melville contain 100-250 million brl (in place) ...
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