Melanie

//Oil Sands by; Melanie Pereira// Oil sands were known and still commonly known as tar sands. Oil sands have only been recently considered part of the worlds oil reserves as the oil prices have gone higher. Many countries have large deposits of tar sand but the two largest are found in Canada and Venezuela. The most effiecent method of extracting oil from the tar sands is by surfacing mining.The tar sands by themselves are usually about 40-60 metres deep. Hot water and caustic is added to the sand. The water chemistry needs to be appropriate in order to all the bitumen to seperate from the sand and clay. Bitumen is much thicker than the tradition crudeoil, so it needs to be mixed together with light gas, liquid or chemically split because it can be transported by pipeline for upgrading into synthectic crude oil.

The Athabasca Oil Sands oils sands is a large area of oil-rich bitumen and is located in Northern Alberta near Fort McMurray. It is the largest oil deposit of three, that they have in Alberta. It is named after the Athabasca River because the. river runs through the heart of the deposit. The Athabasca Oil Sands production estimates that the deposit contains 35 billion barrels alone.

As of 2006 oils sands production had increased to 1.126 million barrels per day. By 2010 oil sands production is estimated to reach production of 2 million barrels per day and by 2015 Canadian oil production may reach 4 million barrels per day. December of 2006 there were an estimated 3360 oil sand that cover approximately 54,275 square kilometres.