Water Supply for Canada's Oil Sands

The Topic

The production of oil from oil sands involves the extraction of bitumen which requires a significant volume of water.  In order to produce one cubic metre of synthetic crude oil from oil sands, it has been estimated that 2-4.5 cubic metres of water must be used.  Currently, oil sands mining projects are licensed to withdraw 370 million cubic metres (2.3 billion barrels) of freshwater per year from the Athabasca River.  However, production from this resource is expanding, and taking all of the planned mining projects into account, water withdrawal would increase to 529 million cubic metres (3.3 billion barrels) per year.  Stakeholders have agreed that this volume of withdrawal would not be sustainable because the Athabasca River does not have sufficient flows.

Under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA), the province of Alberta requires that effective water conservation and protection measures be employed by oil and gas operators. A number of water conservation strategies are currently being utilized or researched, including:

• The recycling or reuse of process water
• The use of brackish or saline water from aquifers
• The recapture and reuse of mining tailings water
• Research into extraction and tailing technologies that would serve to reduce water use
• Research into in situ bitumen recovery methods that use solvents, and are non-thermal, therefore not requiring water for steam
• Investigation into cooperative withdrawal agreements between companies and water management strategies among oil sand operators

However, research has suggested that the climate is changing towards drier, warmer conditions, which could further limit the freshwater supply from the Athabasca River. Output assessments under various climate scenarios and research into climate change adaptation possibilities will be necessary to sustain both the freshwater resource and oil sands production.

Research Activities

It is clear that with the decline of conventional oil supplies in Canada, the type of oil supply that Canada will rely upon increasingly in the future has shifted to oil sands production.  The production of oil in Canada presently requires a great deal of water.  Recent research has been focussed on the establishment of realistic projections of water flows in Alberta, particularly in the Athabasca region where the largest oil deposit is located, in order to ascertain how much oil sands production can be sustained in the coming years to meet Canada's energy needs while at the same time protecting northern ecosystems.

The river discharge rates naturally fluctuate on decadal and century scale cycles, but since most records along the Athabasca River only date back 50 years, some cycles may be missed and therefore provide an inaccurate estimate of trends.  Scientists have constructed models by integrating multiple observed cycles in river flow discharge.