Oil sands, in-situ propel Canada’s reserves

Oil sands mining and in-situ projects were the driving force behind a 33 percent rise in Canada’s petroleum reserves in 2006, raising established crude oil and equivalent reserves to 19 billion barrels, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

Oil sands reserves climbed by 5.4 billion barrels to 13.6 billion barrels, but conventional crude slipped 266 million barrels to 4.94 billion barrels, while pentanes plus were up fractionally at 448 million barrels.

Conventional crude in the Western Canada Sedimentary basin posted a 5 percent decline to 2.96 billion barrels and the East Coast lost 111 million barrels from production, ending 2008 at 1.61 billion barrels.

Oil sands mining reserves gained 45 percent to 8.9 billion barrels following the booking of reserves from Canadian Natural Resources’ Horizon project and in-situ reserves rocketed 90 percent to 4.7 billion barrels because of new and expanded projects.

CAPP confines its annual reserve numbers to oil sands projects that are either developed or where substantial investments have been made, leaving it far behind the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimate of 173 billion barrels.

The only real surprise in the numbers came from the natural gas sector, where additions to reserves replaced 104 percent of production, lifting Canada’s total reserves to 58.2 trillion cubic feet, although Alberta recorded a decline of 790 billion cubic feet to 40.15 tcf.

British Columbia cemented its place as the most successful gas region, pushing its total up by 703 bcf to 13.05 tcf and Saskatchewan added a net 256 bcf to 3.5 tcf.

The Northwest Territories and Yukon gas reserves were down 36 bcf to 363 bcf, while the NWT crude reserves declined 6 million barrels to 30 million barrels.

CAPP estimated Canada’s natural gas liquids reserves, including ethane, propane and butane, rose 5 percent to 800 million barrels. Sulfur recovered at gas plants decreased by 12 percent to 48 million long tons, but sulfur recovered at oil plants was up 17 percent to 44 million long tons.

—Gary Park