Petroleum resources of Canada in the twenty-first century

Remaining reserves of marketable crude oil and natural gas in Canada are more than 1.43 billion [10(9)] m(3) (9 billion bbl) and 1.84 trillion [10(12)] m(3) (65 trillion cubic feet [tcf]), respectively. These reserves enable current annual extraction rates of 127 million m(3) (800 million bbl) of oil and 170 billion m(3) (6 tcf) of natural gas, mainly from the mature Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. In the new millennium, expanded contributions to production capacity will come initially from the Mesozoic Jeanne d'Arc Basin (e.g., Hibernia and Terra Nova oil) offshore Newfoundland and from basins off Nova Scotia (e.g., Sable Island gas). In northern Alberta, additional investment in exploiting the Cretaceous oil sands will enhance the production of upgraded (synthetic) crude oil, bitumen, and heavy oil. Notwithstanding the technical and commercial challenges, predictions of remaining exploitable resources in accessible areas exceed 5.6 trillion m(3) (200 tcf) of gas and 16 billion m(3) (100 billion bbl) of bitumen. In addition to oil sands, tight gas, and coal-bed methane in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, significant undeveloped resources are known in the remote Canadian Arctic islands (Sverdrup Basin), the Labrador shelf (gas), and the Beaufort Basin (gas and oil). Many of these resources will remain "orphaned," depending on environmental aspects, delivery costs, markets, and commodity prices. Current "stranded gas" in the Mackenzie Delta and the shallow offshore waters of the Beaufort Sea will be connected (via the Mackenzie Valley corridor) to the natural-gas pipeline grid serving Canadian and United States markets. Associated gas reserves (presently reinjected at Hibernia) in the Jeanne d'Arc Basin, if not connected to shore by pipeline, may be developed using either natural-gas-to-liquid conversion or compressed-gas transport technologies. Canada's resource base is not in crisis, but the rate of conversion of the resource base to productive capacity cannot be as rapid as the resource potential might suggest.