The economy of Alberta is the sum of all economic activity in Alberta, Canada's fourth largest province by population. Alberta's GDP in 2018 was CDN$338.2 billion.
The Athabasca oil sands, also known as the Athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil that constitute unconventional resources, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada – roughly centred on the boomtown of Fort McMurray. These oil sands, hosted primarily in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen, silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits.
The National Energy Program was an energy policy of the Canadian federal government from 1980 to 1985. Created under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau by Energy Minister Marc Lalonde in 1980, the program was administered by the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources. Introduced following the oil crises and stagflation of the 1970s, the NEP proved to be a highly controversial policy initiative that pitted centralized economic nationalism and federal aspirations of energy self-sufficiency against provincial jurisdiction with hundreds of billions of dollars in oil revenue at stake. The result was a dispute that sparked intense opposition and anger in Canada's West, particularly in Alberta, and the rise of the Reform Party, a development that would shape Canadian politics for years to come.
Enbridge Inc. is a multinational pipeline and energy company headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Enbridge owns and operates pipelines throughout Canada and the United States, transporting crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids. Enbridge's pipeline system is the longest in North America and the largest oil export pipeline network in the world. Its crude oil system consists of 28,661 kilometres of pipelines. Its 38,300 kilometre natural gas pipeline system connects multiple Canadian provinces, several US states, and the Gulf of Mexico. The company was formed by Imperial Oil in 1949 as the Interprovincial Pipe Line Company Limited to transport Alberta oil to refineries. Over time, it has grown through acquisition of other existing pipeline companies and the expansion of their projects. Between 2012 and 2021, Enbridge transported over 32 billion barrels of crude oil.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), with its head office in Calgary, Alberta, is a lobby group that represents the upstream Canadian oil and natural gas industry. CAPP's members produce "90% of Canada's natural gas and crude oil" and "are an important part of a national industry with revenues of about $100 billion-a-year ."
Petroleum production in Canada is a major industry which is important to the 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 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.
The Alaska gas pipeline is a joint project of TransCanada Corp. and ExxonMobil Corp. to develop a natural gas pipeline under the AGIA, a.k.a. the Alaska Gas Inducement Act, adopted by Alaska Legislature in 2007. The project originally proposed two options during its open season offering over a three-month period from April 30 to July 30, 2010. An 'open season' in layman's terms is when a company conducts a non-binding show of interest or poll in the marketplace, they ask potential customers "if we build it, will you come?".
Dilbit is a bitumen diluted with one or more lighter petroleum products, typically natural-gas condensates such as naphtha. Diluting bitumen makes it much easier to transport, for example in pipelines. Per the Alberta Oil Sands Bitumen Valuation Methodology, "Dilbit Blends" means "Blends made from heavy crudes and/or bitumens and a diluent, usually natural-gas condensate, for the purpose of meeting pipeline viscosity and density specifications, where the density of the diluent included in the blend is less than 800 kg/m3." If the diluent density is greater than or equal to 800 kg/m3, the diluent is typically synthetic crude and accordingly the blend is called synbit.
Canada's natural gas liquids industry dates back to the discovery of wet natural gas at Turner Valley, Alberta in 1914. The gas was less important than the natural gasoline - "skunk gas" it was called, because of its distinctive odour - that early producers extracted from it. That natural gas liquid (NGL) could be poured directly into an automobile's fuel tank.
The Canadian petroleum industry arose in parallel with that of the United States. Because of Canada's unique geography, geology, resources and patterns of settlement, however, it developed in different ways. The evolution of the petroleum sector has been a key factor in the history of Canada, and helps illustrate how the country became quite distinct from her neighbour to the south.
Canada has access to all main sources of energy including oil and gas, coal, hydropower, biomass, solar, geothermal, wind, marine and nuclear. It is the world's second largest producer of uranium, third largest producer of hydro-electricity, fourth largest natural gas producer, and the fifth largest producer of crude oil. In 2006, only Russia, the People's Republic of China, the United States and Saudi Arabia produce more total energy than Canada.
Although there are numerous oil companies operating in Canada, as of 2009, the majority of production, refining and marketing was done by fewer than 20 of them. According to the 2013 edition of Forbes Global 2000, canoils.com and any other list that emphasizes market capitalization and revenue when sizing up companies, as of March 31, 2014 these are the largest Canada-based oil and gas companies.
The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines were a project to build a twin pipeline from Bruderheim, Alberta, to Kitimat, British Columbia. The eastbound pipeline would have imported natural gas condensate and the westbound pipeline would have exported diluted bitumen from the Athabasca oil sands to a marine terminal in Kitimat for transportation to Asian markets via oil tankers. The project would have also included terminal facilities with "integrated marine infrastructure at tidewater to accommodate loading and unloading of oil and condensate tankers, and marine transportation of oil and condensate." The CA$7.9 billion project was proposed in mid-2000s and has been postponed several times. The proposed project would have been developed by Enbridge Inc., a Canadian crude oil and liquids pipeline and storage company.
The National Energy Board was an independent economic regulatory agency created in 1959 by the Government of Canada to oversee "international and inter-provincial aspects of the oil, gas and electric utility industries". Its head office was located in Calgary, Alberta.
Western Canadian Select (WCS) is a heavy sour blend of crude oil that is one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams and, historically, its cheapest. It was established in December 2004 as a new heavy oil stream by EnCana (now Cenovus), Canadian Natural Resources, Petro-Canada (now Suncor) and Talisman Energy (now Repsol Oil & Gas Canada). It is composed mostly of bitumen blended with sweet synthetic and condensate diluents and 21 existing streams of both conventional and unconventional Alberta heavy crude oils at the large Husky Midstream General Partnership terminal in Hardisty, Alberta. Western Canadian Select—the benchmark for heavy, acidic (TAN <1.1) crudes—is one of many petroleum products from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin oil sands. Calgary-based Husky Energy, now a subsidiary of Cenovus, had joined the initial four founders in 2015.
The Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) is an Alberta corporation, with its main office in Calgary, Alberta. The AER's mandate under the Responsible Energy Development Act (REDA), passed on 10 December 2012 and proclaimed on 17 June 2013, is to provide safe, efficient, orderly, and environmentally responsible development of energy resources in the province. Under the REDA, the Alberta Government established the AER in December 2012 to provide a one-stop shop for regulatory approvals after industry complained about the delays and costs of red tape. The legislation combined duties of the Energy Resources Conservation Board with responsibilities of Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development to create a single entity to administer the Public Lands Act, the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and the Water Act. The AER operates at arm's length from the Government of Alberta, under an appointed board of directors headed by Chair David Goldie. On 17 June 2013, all regulatory functions previously carried out by the Energy Resources Conservation Board were taken over by the AER.
Pipelines in Canada are important components of energy infrastructure in Canada as the majority of natural gas and oil deposits are located in landlocked Alberta and need to be transported to ports or terminals to access larger markets.
The Canadian province of Alberta faces a number of environmental issues related to natural resource extraction—including oil and gas industry with its oil sands—endangered species, melting glaciers in banff, floods and droughts, wildfires, and global climate change. While the oil and gas industries generates substantial economic wealth, the Athabasca oil sands, which are situated almost entirely in Alberta, are the "fourth most carbon intensive on the planet behind Algeria, Venezuela and Cameroon" according to an August 8, 2018 article in the American Association for the Advancement of Science's journal Science. This article details some of the environmental issues including past ecological disasters in Alberta and describes some of the efforts at the municipal, provincial and federal level to mitigate the risks and impacts.
Tourmaline Oil is a Canadian energy company engaged in the exploration, development, and extraction of crude oil and natural gas. It is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta in Canada. A major natural gas producer, it became the largest natural gas producer in Canada in 2021. It is also the first Canadian oil and gas exploration and development company to directly engage in the liquified natural gas business.
