Energy Facts
Alberta’s extensive pipeline infrastructure is made up of 332,464 kilometers of pipeline.
In 2006-2007, Alberta oil and gas royalty revenues amounted to $12.75 billion – over 30% of the Government of Alberta’s total revenue.
According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers in 2006 over 275,000 people were directly or indirectly employed in Alberta's energy sector.
The energy sector provides benefits to communities through employment opportunities, community infrastructure development, and economic prosperity.
Alberta companies pioneered the development of many innovative technologies -- from high-capacity pipelines to horizontal wells, large heavy-oil crackers and pipelines that transport super-heavy crudes.
Since 1999, Alberta oil and gas companies have implemented over 300 projects that have reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Aboriginal Relations
Alberta is entirely covered by Treaties: Treaty 6 (1876), Treaty 7 (1877), Treaty 8 (1899) and small portions of Treaty 4 (1894) and Treaty 10 (1906). There are no Alberta Indian Reserves located within Treaties 4 and 10.
Alberta is the only province in Canada that has a recognized Metis land base. There are eight Metis Settlements in Alberta: Buffalo Lake, East Prairie, Elizabeth, Fishing Lake, Gift Lake, Kikino, Paddle Prairie and Peavine.
The most commonly spoken First Nations’ languages are (alphabetically): Blackfoot, Cree, Chipewyan, Dene, Sarcee, and Stoney (Nakoda Sioux).
The total population of First Nations in Alberta is 92,060.
The largest Alberta First Nation is the Blood Tribe, with a population of 9,505.
The smallest Alberta First Nation is the Duncan’s First Nation, with a population of 205.
Bioenergy
40,000 head of cattle can produce enough manure feedstock to generate 5 MW of electricity through biogas.
Ethanol has a higher octane rating than normal gasoline.
Biodiesel can be made with waste oil from restaurant deep fryers.
The main byproduct of biodiesel is glycerine which has over 1,500 applications including food, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.
Ethanol has been used as a motor fuel in North America since the early 1900s. Ethanol gas blends were used in several states during the Second World War.
Coal
Coal has been mined in Alberta since the late 1800s. Over 1800 mines have operated in Alberta since then.
Coal prospectors were once a familiar sight around Alberta. Often seeking new deposits for the railways, these prospectors were a big part of exploring and mapping some of Alberta’s remote foothills and mountain regions.
Every two weeks Alberta produces enough coal to fill the Sky Dome in Toronto.
Coal is a low-cost fuel for electricity generation and plays a major role in keeping power prices at reasonable levels. Alberta uses over 25 million tonnes of coal annually to generate more electricity.
Alberta has vast coal resources and 70 per cent of Canada's coal reserves are right here in this province. This amounts to 33.6 Gigatonnes.
The Government of Alberta supports the coal industry, while requiring the best possible environmental protections, including our new clean-air requirements.
Electricity
Alberta has over 12,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity generation capacity as well as 21,000 kilometres of transmission lines. Together, this system continuously delivers electricity to homes, farms and businesses in every corner of the province.
Almost half of Alberta’s electricity generation capacity is from coal and almost 40 percent from natural gas. Alberta also uses water, wind and biomass as forms of electricity generation.
Over 5,000 MW of new generation facilities have been built in Alberta since 1998.
Alberta currently has 521 MW of wind power generation, with enough capacity to serve over 500,000 homes.
Livestock manure is currently being used for biomass power generation at one facility in Alberta.
Alberta’s micro-generation policy makes it easier for individual Albertans to generate their own environmentally-friendly electricity and allows them to sell what they don’t use back to the grid. This gives Albertans more options when it comes to managing their electricity needs.
Since 2005, the Alberta government has had contracts to purchase over 90 percent of its own electricity requirements from green power.
The Alberta legislature building has a solar power system that can provide enough power to light 70 compact fluorescent light bulbs for approximately 5 hours/day, or almost half the power used by an average household in a year.
One compact fluorescent bulb will last as long as 13 incandescent light bulbs.
If you had a light bulb on the moon, connected to a switch in your home, it would take only 1.3 seconds for that bulb to light up over 380,000 kilometres away.
Much of the electrical terminology used today comes from the names of the scientists who made electric breakthroughs, such as: James Watt, Alessandro Volta, Andre Marie Ampere, and James Joule.
Environment and Resource Services
The Alberta government works with a broad range of stakeholders to develop provincial recovery plans for four species at risk: woodland caribou, grizzly bear, trumpeter swan and sage grouse.
About 13% of the province's land area is off-limits to energy development - environmentally sensitive areas including some parks and recreation areas.
The average width of oil and gas industry seismic lines has been reduced over the past twenty years from over 6 meters to 2.8 meters. In environmentally sensitive areas, seismic lines are very often less than 1 meter wide and where helicopter-assisted seismic programs are used lines may be undetectable.
Albertans own 81 per cent of the province's oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. The Department of Energy manages the sustained development of these resources in a responsible manner that maximizes long-term benefits to the province.
Minerals
The Banff Springs Hotel exterior is Rundle stone, a brown sandstone, still quarried near Canmore for use in construction and landscaping.
Paskapoo sandstone from the Glenbow quarry near Calgary was used in construction on the top four stories of the Alberta Legislature Building, which began in 1907 and finished in 1912.
To November 2008, 51 kimberlite bodies (the volcanic rock type most likely to contain economic deposits of diamonds) have been discovered in Alberta. Of these areas, the Buffalo Head Hills area in north-central Alberta has the highest diamond content results to date. 28 of the 41 Buffalo Head Hills bodies contain diamond. At least three of these kimberlites (kimberlites K14, K91 and K252) contain estimated diamond grades of >12 carats per hundred tonnes (cpht). The Buffalo Head Hills kimberlite K252 has the highest estimated diamond grades in Alberta with a preliminary mini-bulk (22.8 t) sample grade of 55 cpht.
In 1958, the first diamond in Alberta was reportedly found in fluvial gravels near Evansburg, east of Edson. Solution mining of salt occurs in Alberta. Water is injected into salt formations to recover the brine. Brine is water saturated or nearly saturated with salt (usually NaCl – sodium chloride – table salt -- but could be other salts). “Saturated” in this context means water containing as much dissolved salt as it can hold. At 15.5 °C (288.65 K, 60 °F) saturated brine is 26.4% salt (sodium chloride) by weight). At 0 °C (273.15 K, 32 °F) brine can only hold 26.3% salt.
Natural Gas
Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fossil fuels.
Natural gas can form over time from almost any organic material. It is generally located deep underground in porous rock or trapped between more solid rock formations.
The first natural gas well was drilled in 1883 in a field near Medicine Hat, Alberta.
A gigajoule, a unit for measuring natural gas, is the energy equivalent of about 30 litres of gasoline.
The average Albertan household uses 135 gigajoules of natural gas a year.
Alberta produces about five trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas per year. This is enough natural gas to heat every home in Alberta for about 35 years.
Over 80 per cent of Canada’s natural gas production is from Alberta.
In 2007, Alberta consumed 1.51 Tcf of natural gas. The rest was exported across Canada and to the United States.
Royalties to Alberta from natural gas and its byproducts are larger than royalties from crude oil and bitumen.
In 2006-07, the $12.26 billion in non-renewable resource revenue accounted for over 30 per cent of government revenue. In 2006-07, natural gas and by-product revenue was $5.99 billion, or approximately 16 per cent of government revenue.
In 2007, there were 9,971 successful natural gas wells drilled in Alberta: 9,220 conventional gas wells and 751 coalbed methane wells.
Oil
Conventional crude oil production in Alberta averaged 525 thousand barrels a day (bbls/d) in 2007.
Alberta exported over 1.3 million bbls/d of oil to US markets in 2007, similar to the levels in 2006 and an increase of 40% over 2000.
There are about 3,000 "petroleum products" or products made from crude oil including gasoline, ink, crayons, bubble gum, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, records, tires, ammonia, and heart valves.
All crude oil is not the same. Crude oil is called "sweet" when it contains only a small amount of sulphur and "sour" if it contains a lot of sulphur.
There are 159 litres (42 US gallons) in a barrel of oil. During the early development of the petroleum industry, 42 US gallons was deemed to equal a barrel of oil. The only barrels guaranteed to be 42 US gallons were the blue barrels manufactured for and used by Standard Oil. Thus the standard measure for oil became the 42 US gallon blue barrel or "bbl".
In 2007, Alberta produced more crude oil from non-conventional resources (Oil Sands) than from conventional sources.
At the year end 2007, the world crude oil reserves were estimated at close to 1.23 trillion barrels, of which the 13 OPEC Member Countries held about 76 per cent.
Oil Sands
Oil sands facts and statistics are regularly updated.
Petrochemicals
Alberta is Canada’s leading producer of petrochemicals with a production capacity of 8.6 billion pounds of ethylene per year.
Petrochemicals are made by processing and reprocessing natural gas and oil.
Products made from petrochemicals include hard hats, skateboard wheels, camera film, computer keys, detergents, moulding and chewing gum.
Tenure
The highest bonus amount collected by the Department of Energy for petroleum and natural gas rights was $1.827 billion in 2005.
In 2006, $1.472 billion in bonus revenue was collected from the public offering of petroleum and natural gas rights. This is the second highest total amount ever collected in one year.
The most money paid for one parcel of petroleum and natural gas rights was $46 million on January 25, 2006.
The most money collected by the Department of Energy in one public offering of petroleum and natural gas rights was $475 million on December 14, 2005.
The Department of Energy collects freehold mineral tax on production derived from freehold oil and gas properties. In 2006, $327 million in tax was levied.
Albertans own the mineral rights for 53.7 million hectares of land. That's about 81 per cent of Alberta's total land area. The remaining 19 per cent are freehold mineral rights owned by private individuals and companies or minerals owned by the federal government (National Parks, Indian Reserves).
On a yearly basis, the Department of Energy holds an average of 24 land auctions and issues between 8,000 and 9,000 petroleum and natural gas agreements.
