Talk:Athabasca oil sands/Archive 1

Minor correction please
The link at References footnote No. 4 doesn't work any more. As I don't know how to edit the correction within the References section could anyone please do this? The correct link should be the following: http://www.neb-one.gc.ca/clf-nsi/rnrgynfmtn/nrgyrprt/lsnd/pprtntsndchllngs20152006/pprtntsndchllngs20152006-eng.pdf Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

Economics
I don't have time to do this because I'm leaving for a few weeks in Peru, but the section on oil sands economics needs a reality check. Not even the Arabs have production costs below $2/barrel any more. Saudi Aramco is having to put in waterflood systems and drill horizontal wells with multiple multilaterals to keep production up, and although their costs are a state secret, it can't be cheap. See oil well. Recent oil sands numbers: Suncor's first quarter profits were C$713 million, over 10 times the first quarter last year, their operating costs dropped to C$19.05 per barrel, their sales price increased to C$65.75 a barrel. That means they made a profit of 46.70 per barrel - it's like having a license to print money. RockyMtnGuy 16:38, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

The economics estimates might have to revised based on the latest estimated capex and opex for expanded production. For the next expansion project Shell Canada announced anticipated capital cost of $275 - 325 per annual flowing barrel. Assuming rate of return of 10%, this results in about $45/bbl capital cost contribution. Shell Canada also revealed current operating cash cost at about $20-25/bbl. Therefore, total cost of oil produced is close to $70/bbl (this includes cost of upgrading bitumen). For reference see: http://www.shell.ca/home/Framework?siteId=ca-en&FC2=/ca-en/html/iwgen/investor/presentations/zzz_lhn.html&FC3=/ca-en/html/iwgen/investor/presentations/investor_presentations.html


 * Shell is probably wishing they did this ten years ago because costs are skyrocketing due to an acute shortage of labor and everything else. However, they're going ahead anyway. Parent company Royal Dutch Shell seems to be desperate to find new oil after it had to restate its reserves. On the other hand, CNRL claims its project is on budget and on time, possible due to the use of sharper pencils. RockyMtnGuy 09:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I bet, Suncor is probably laughing becuase they have had all their ducks in gear for years, and their major expansion is both on time and on budget because of this.

Production costs are probably a lot lower than that now given that gas has fallen. It will be interesting when the reports have come out. Gas is as Cheap as it was around 2000, which means costs are probably nearer to 10 dollars per barrel. Thats one of their largest expenses. That means that at 25 bucks a barrel with those costs, you are still making a cool 20%.--Meanie 03:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Due to a severe labor shortage in the oil sands in particular and Alberta in general, production costs are still likely north of $20/barrel. However, oil prices are still over $50, so they probably are making well over 20% on their investment. RockyMtnGuy 03:55, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Heavy use of water
I'd like a better comparison to conventional drilling, which also uses a lot of water. (i.e. pumping water into wells to increase the pressure) --  unsigned comment by User:24.57.157.81 17:07, 2005 September 27 


 * Conventional wells have a one-to-one correspondence between the amount of water pumped in and the amount of oil pushed out. Exploiting Tar Sands uses many times as much water per unit of petroleum extracted.  And, unlike drilling, exploiting tar sands leaves a vast amount of toxic tailings.  The sand, after the oil is extracted, is highly toxic.  --  Geo Swan 08:04, 22 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The Athabasca River runs through the middle of the Athabasca oil sands. The Peace River runs through the Peace River oil sands. These are two of the biggest rivers in Western Canada. There's no other use for the water because you can't grow anything and there are no towns downstream. The sand, after the oil is extracted, is less toxic than it was before the sand was extracted because there's less oil in it. You have to realize that the oil sands are basically an oil spill the size of Belgium. It's hard to make it worse. RockyMtnGuy 05:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I didn't notice this reply.
 * The rivers feed rich wetlands -- essential wetlands.
 * The rivers flow into the Arctic Ocean, one of the most fragile environments on Earth.
 * Can you support the assertion that the tailings are less toxic than the original tar sands? Even if that were true, the current technology leaves a lot of polluted water.
 * Cheers!

Cleanup?
Does anyone think this still requires a cleanup tag? It looks like a decent enough article.  OhNo itsJamie Talk 07:23, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the article overlaps with "Tar Sands", but contains some very good material. Cleaned it up April 8, 2006. Non-Athabascan specific material cut (someone may want to move the old material on the oil extraction process to the main article "Tar Sands" and edit a final text). Extraneous material on oil in sedementary rock was cut (since article is about oil sands); someone may want to create a new article on this subject. Tedious discussion on oil reserves has been simplified; if necessary, insert comments into the main article "Oil Reserves". -- Joseph B.

Yes, feels like there are still NPOV issues, and therefore/however edits.70.75.22.190 (talk)

Oilsands mining operations do not consume water. Syncrude for example draws very little river water anymore, they recycle all the water. Stating that each barrel of oil puts 2 or 3 into a tailings pond is misleading in that it seems to imply that that water then sits there for ever, when in fact its recycled back into the process. River water use is strictly monitored, mines are responsible for all process effected water, including rain water that falls on the mine, and ground water they remove for mine dewatering. The ground water closest to the oilsand layer is not sutible for consuption or release even beofre mining, it carries H2S and in somecases methane.The tailings ponds do not flood forests or bogs, rather dykes are created on cleared land., the dykes are created using both the earth over the oilsands and the tailings, the tailings is not toxic. Theres even exploration into using the tailins sands as a source of Ti. --Shane H.

400,000 barrels of oil to China
That doesn't seem like a significant amount, especially to a country like China. As it's written, it's a small, one-time shipment. Is it supposed to be a flow rate: barrels per day, per month, per year? Indefatigable 18:50, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It's barrels per day. Ref: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/16/content_485265.htm Fixed article accordingly. --Nagle 01:24, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Is the claim that Harper fast tracked the deal because of the soft wood lumber dispute backed up anywhere? It's the first I've hard that, and it seems a bit of a stretch to include it here. TastyCakes 06:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Protests?
Aren't there any protests against this monster of a project? I have seen a National Geographic report about the Suncor site and although deforestation, air pollution and water redirection are being mentioned, to me, it mostly was like an advertisement showing, for example, huge trucks. So, again: isn't there any protest against all of this? Internationally as well as on an NGO-basis?

The feature mentioned that 75% of the water which is used, is being cleaned and recycled. It also said that, oil companies have 'promised' to renature the area after the project finished. LIllIi 23:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Who's going to complain? There are 80,000 people up there in an area bigger Florida with a climate nastier than Alaska. They're all working in the oil sands. Other than that, there's a National Park that's bigger than Switzerland. However, you can't go there - there are no roads. But the trees, water, bears and wolves are doing fine in their absence. RockyMtnGuy 02:23, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * They're proud of it. The mines are a tourist attraction.  Take the "Experience the Energy" tour. “Experience the Energy” of Fort McMurray with a tour of Syncrude Canada Ltd. or Suncor Energy mine sites. See the earth move before your eyes as shovels carrying 100 tons load 380 ton payload trucks with the rich, black oil sand. Follow the process from mining to pipeline and see how the sand is reclaimed as a productive partner in the natural environment.  --John Nagle 04:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)


 * That and the sites aren't really any worse than any big strip mining project. TastyCakes 17:31, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
 * They're actually better than the big coal mines in the Western states which 1) are in a semiarid region with insufficient water to support revegetation, and 2) turn the little available groundwater acidic. And they're nowhere near as big an evironmental disaster as the abandoned open-pit copper mines in Montana, which are filled with lakes of concentrated sulphuric acid, copper, arsenic and other minerals. The Berkeley Pit near Butte, Montana is the largest superfund site in the US. RockyMtnGuy 14:31, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Realism and hype
In my honest humble opinion it is more than naive to assume that a so called "promise to leave behind a reasonably intact natural environment" by corporate oil producers will ever become reality. When there is no monetary value associated with it, it's not going to happen. It is the provincial/federal governments' responsibility to create that value and require environmental remediation by the producers immediately after exploitation of an area. After all the province/federation licenses the resource exploitation, too. Interesting times for the government to invent some new law. While the oil sand fields are remote, they occopy vast amounts of land and a significant share of Alberta. I assume it would be in Alberta's and everybody else's interest to avoid large scale scarring and the creation of such deadlands the province may have never seen before.

It would also be advisable to carefully review estimates and figures. The current 40 to 400 years of Alberta's oil sand reserves are not production ratio derived (see BP's report "Quantifying energy", June 2006). At best they seem to be extremely optimistic estimates. Alberta and Canada would be well advised to realistically assess the effects of oil sand exploitation. It is the government's responsibility to wisely manage the land for its people. If done so, other Canadian's and the rest of the world will be very grateful, that's certain.


 * The misleading thing about the BP report is that it really uses only publicly available information which anybody can find from other sources. See the footnote: "nor do they necessarily represent BP’s view of proved reserves by country" - which means that PB doesn't include its own proprietary data in them.


 * Also see the footnote, "The figure for Canadian oil reserves includes an official estimate of Canadian oil sands ‘under active development’". That means it only includes oil sands leases that are have a mine or thermal facility on them. However, the oil sands are the size of Florida and the vast majority is not ‘under active development’, so BP doesn't include the oil in its reserves despite the fact that thousands of wells have been drilled to delineate it.


 * The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board publishes a review of Alberta's energy reserves every year. For the latest (178-page) version see Alberta's Energy Reserves 2006 It's actually rather conservative. For instance it assumes a 20% rate of oil recovery from the sands, while the oil companies claim they get closer to 60 or 70%. RockyMtnGuy 23:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Reformatting the table
Before reformatting the table, I'll store the old version here for easy reversion. My new version (tested in my sandbox) looks OK, but it sure pumps up the volume of the code.

Severe NPOV Issues
The section on environmental impact is judgement-ridden in absence of evidence and uses alarmist language.

Examples, of which there are many:

"The certain possibility of enduring, expensive environmental and health risks however remain to be studied, remedied and otherwise accounted for." -- deserves a request for source citation at the least. Difficult to prove a negative, I expect. "certain possibility" is weasel-language of the type encyclopedias do not need -- "Critics contend that government and industry measures taken to mitigate environmental and health risks are inadequate, citing..." yadda yadda would be the usual formulation.

"Extremely rich archaeological and natural values may be permanently lost forever as the natural northern Boreal landscape is ravaged and destroyed by large scale essentially dirty, energy consumptive mining practices" -- "Critics further contend that archaelogical sites and natural resources may be damaged by large scale mining."

"The strong need for curtailing mining activity until solutions are provided for ongoing environmental and health risks is paramount to the survival of local inhabitants." -- I'm assuming there's a study that says "More controls or mining will kill everyone", or this would just be irresponsible.

I've made preliminary edits to correct the NPOV issues. Feel free to comment or correct. It is probably obvious but I'll mention for the sake of completeness that I do not self-identify as an environmentalist. 210.172.204.147 09:05, 23 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I like your edits70.75.22.190 (talk)


 * I think the main problem is that it is all boilerplate envirobabble written by people who have no first-hand experience in the oil sands. It's like everything else in the oil sands. Any environmentalist who is capable of contributing something about the oil sands to Wikipedia is too busy writing environmental impact statements or reviewing environmental impact statements to contribute anything. Most of the text looks like copied text with "Amazon rain forest" replaced with "northern boreal forest" wherever it occurred.
 * Certain possibility - Huh? That's a contradiction. Like a certain uncertainty.
 * Critics contend - Who are these critics, exactly? Name a few. Provide references.
 * Government ... measures ... are inadequate - Government measures are always inadequate for people who are not on the receiving end of blank cheques.
 * Extremely rich archaeological and natural values - I don't recall seeing pyramids and ancient walled cities on the banks of the Athabasca River. I do recall seeing naturally occurring tar seeping out of them.
 * Natural resources may be damaged - Be more specific. Are these the naturally occurring coal, natural gas, salt or uranium resources that might be damaged. Or possibly the diamonds they keep finding in the rivers but haven't found the source of? More likely it's the aforementioned boreal forest, but the companies intend to convert the land to pasture land and stock it with buffalo since they can't restore it to its original boggy scruffiness.
 * In other words, it needs some informed research rather than cut-and-paste copying from something about Montana copper mines or Appalachian coal mines. I know people who could do it, but again they're too busy consulting. Personally, I know a lot more about the production issues than the environmental issues. RockyMtnGuy 19:47, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I became severely irritated about the copy-and-paste environmentalism being repeated, and the fifth-hand envirobabble (see citing sources below) being bandied about (a quotes b quotes c quotes d quotes e who was actually talking about the Amazon rain forest) so I did a lot of rewriting from the perspective of neutralizing the language, plus I added a bunch of first-hand references. RockyMtnGuy 05:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks good.
 * "does not require companies to restore the land to "original condition"" -Is there any evidence that original condition can be restored?70.75.22.190 (talk)

Citing Sources
People really need to stick to authoritative sources close to the subject when contributing content to this article. In particular, they should read Attribution. In this case, I'm thinking about some new material added in the Environment impacts section.

The information added cites the Dogwood initiative as an authoritative source. Following up on the reference, I find the Dogwood Initiative as an environmental action group in Victoria, British Columbia, concerned about protecting BCs forests. The Dogwood Initiative is quoting an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail. Toronto is roughly 1000 miles south and 3000 miles east of the oil sands and is not noted for its acumen about the oil industry. The Globe and Mail is quoting the Pembina Institute, which at least is located in Alberta although nowhere near the oil sands. The Pembina institute is another environmental action group quoting even more distant sources. So, this information is at least fifth-hand and probably more distant. It could take forever to find the original source of this information, and figure out what they were trying to say.

The quoted information says "A cubic metre of oil, mined from the tar sands, needs two to 4.5 cubic metres of water." However, the Pembina Institute's version it says "2 to 4.5 cubic metres of steam". That's not quite the same thing. Does it mean "steam reduced to a cold-water equivalent", or does it mean "steam as a gas". There's a huge difference. Which is it? Feel free to chase down the original source and figure it out.

Here's another misleading quote. "There is beginning to be some preliminary indication of health impacts." That's all there is, rumor and innuendo. The reference cites an article in the National Review of Medicine, based in Montreal (even further from the oil sands than Toronto.) The article is about the Alberta College of Physicians investigating a complaint by Health Canada about a physician complaining about high levels of cancer in Fort Chip Chipewyan. Health Canada is accusing him of causing "undue alarm". Now, while Fort Chip is closer to the oil sands than any of the other places mentioned, it's still a really small place and not all that close. Most likely, the health authorities believe he's raising red flags because of what is known as statistical clustering. In other words, in a small town, a high rate of cancer may be three cases (actually, it was three cases), and for the next decade you might get none at all (known as "regression to the mean"), so they want him to shut up until he has some solid data. The government has spent millions investigating rumors of health problems in other small towns, only to discover that the people there are actually much healthier than in the big cities (less air pollution, of course). In fact, a study by the Alberta Cancer Board determined that rates of cancer in Fort Chip were not unusually high, although you're not likely too see an environmental action group print that. RockyMtnGuy 19:12, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Move to Athabasca oil sands
Shouldn't this be at "Athabasca oil sands" (by Naming_conventions_%28capitalization%29)? --Taejo|대조 19:18, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

article title
I continue to believe this article should be named Athabasca Tar Sands. "Oil sands is a neologism coined by oil industry spin-doctors, to make the technology seem less polluting. The original term was "Tar Sands".  IMO one of the missing sections from WP:NOT is WP:NOT.  Accepting, without question, the terms preferred by PR experts does not comply with WP:NPOV.

Cheers! Geo Swan 13:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree with Geo Swan. Cheers Geologyguy 14:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Seems like a reasonable suggestion, however, the spin-doctors comment requires some documentation - who says so besides you & me. The page was moved to its current name back on 21 Feb 2005, seems there was no discussion on talk that old. Also the name on the map is Oil sands. I personally don't care which name is used, but agree with the comment in the previous section regarding capitalisation. Vsmith 14:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll change the map labels to tar sands if the article is moved. When I learned about this in school it known as the tar sands. The subtle shift in terminology is interesting. --NormanEinstein 18:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)


 * The most accurate term is "bituminous sands"; however that would be somewhat baffling to the average reader. The original explorers called it tar from analogy with pine tar or coal tar, which is what they were familiar with. However pine tar and coal tar are obtained by the destructive distillation of wood or coal. The field is actually an incomplete oil reservoir with no cap rock. In the absence of such, the lighter fractions have escaped and the remainder has been partially biodegraded by bacteria. The Athabasca deposit contains an extremely heavy, partially biodegraded form of oil. It's a lot easer to upgrade to light oil than actual tar would be. RockyMtnGuy 02:41, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Irrespective of what the technically correct name for the naturally occuring material is, there is no dispute over the fact that it is being used because it is a source of oil. They aren't mining to get asphalt, bitumen, or tar.  Oil sand is as valid a name as any on that basis.  We don't call diamond mines kimberlite mines, do we?LeadSongDog 17:17, 9 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the key point here is that bitumens are just extremely viscous crude oil and can be refined into gasoline, diesel fuel and asphalt by existing oil refineries, hence as light oil becomes scarcer a lot of U.S. oil refineries are being modified to process Canadian heavy oil and bitumen. The distinction is somewhat arbitrary since term "bitumen" just means oil that will not flow at reservoir conditions. If the reservoirs were hotter (which they are in Venezuela) it would flow and hence be considered heavy oil. The term "tar" is chemically incorrect for these bitumen deposits since tars are, by definition, man-made. RockyMtnGuy 04:25, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Ownership
is there any information on who owns the land that is in focus of the article? Have the Oil companies already bought the whole area? --Trickstar (talk) 17:51, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * It is all owned by the Alberta government (except for the part under Indian reserves which is owned by the Indians). However, the oil companies have purchased leases on most of it. Actually, they're not really leases, they're a legal instrument called a profit-à-prendre, which is the legal right to enter land owned by someone else and take something (in this case oil) away for your own profit. However, the companies have to pay royalties on what they take away, and the government sets the royalty rates. On oil sands, they are relatively low, but they probably will be increased in future.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 05:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The Natural Resources Transfer Acts transferred ownership of the land to the province in 1930. --Qyd (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Confusing and contradictory figures
The figures given in the first paragraph of the "Estimated oil reserves" section appear to be incorrect with regard to scale. For example, the first paragraph states: Alberta Government calculates that about 28 billion cubic metres (174 billion barrels) of crude bitumen are economically recoverable... The next sentence reads: This is equivalent to about 10% of the estimated 1.7 to 2.5 billion barrels (400,000,000 m³) of bitumen in place. 28 billion is not "about 10%" of 2.5 billion; it is about 1,000% of (10 times) 2.5 billion. I believe that either the scale used in the first sentence should be "million" (to bring it in line with the second sentence), or the values in the second sentence need to be increased by a factor of 100 (to bring it in line with the first sentence).

Any thoughts? Adams kevin (talk) 00:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I cannot help much, but of all these numbers, the one that is commonplace (and ballpark correct) is the 174 billion barrels of recoverable. That is about 20.5 billion cubic meters. Cheers Geologyguy (talk) 01:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)


 * *SIGH* Somebody (who shall remain nameless but their initials are Jimp) edited 1,700,000,000,000 barrels down to 1.7 billion barrels. Of course, they appear to be Australian, so it may make sense from their perspective (i.e. they may use the British or "long" billion.) In any case, the correct volume is 1.7 to 2.5 trillion (American trillion) barrels (American oil barrels). Or, in metric (SI) units: 270×109 m3 to 400×109 m3. The Alberta Energy Conservation Board, which made the estimate of 28 billion cubic metres (28×109 m3) of recoverable oil, uses the American billion and the metric (SI) system. Could we all be more careful in editing these numbers if we don't understand them, guys... RockyMtnGuy (talk) 01:45, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Estimated Size
I am editing the estimated size section to reflect the true production numbers, the ones currently listed are lower than the actual production numbers as in 2003 was 858, 000 bbl/d. (Alberta Government, Engergy Department) http://www.energy.gov.ab.ca/89.asp, these numbers reflect a general industry consensus. -Meanie-

Some of that discrepancy reflects the difference between figures for all of Alberta and for the Athabasca area only. 2004 production for all of Alberta is around 1 million bbl/d. Production is projected to reach 2 millons bbl/d by 2010.

Confusing the issue, and this should be addressed, is that the standard extraction process requires huge amounts of natural gas. This really should be deducted from the energy output, and natural gas availability is limiting oil sands development.


 * It only takes 0.4 Mcf of gas to produce 1 barrel of syncrude, and 1 barrel of syncrude is equivalent to 6 Mcf of gas, so I think you have a 15:1 gain. I added the idea of bitumen gasification, which seems to be the main alternative being considered. I also added the likelihood that they are just going to curtail exports of gas to the US to free up fuel. This is in the NEB and EUB documents, but I don't think the Americans have been reading them. RockyMtnGuy 22:24, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

There's a project nearing completion, the Long Lake Project (http://www.nexeninc.com/Operations/Athabasca_Oil_Sands/Long_Lake/project_overview.asp) which is supposed to provide its own fuel, by on-site cracking of the bitumen mined. It's supposed to start operations in 2007, producing 60,000 bbl/day of usable oil. If this works, the natural gas problem becomes much less of an issue.


 * They used natural gas to fire the boilers because there are natural gas fields underneath the oil sands, and there was no other market for it. Since the Americans are now short of natural gas, it's more efficient to sell the gas to the Americans and burn something else. The Athabasca area has bitumen (which can be burned directly), coal, hydro-electric and (nearby in Saskatchewan) uranium. Pick one or more. RockyMtnGuy 05:38, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Amusingly, what's really holding up development in the Athabasca area is that the only real city there, Fort McMurray, has been at 100% apartment occupancy since late 2005. House price levels are at Silicon Valley levels. Building is held up because the sewer plant is at capacity. Sewer plant expansion is being held up because the city and the province are arguing over who pays for expansion. The province, not the city, gets the oil royalties.

Oil sands projects, unlike oil fields, are labor-intensive while in operation. These are huge mining operations, and need tens of thousands of people on-site to work them. The area only has a population of about 75,000, and people must be convinced to move there permanently.

-Nagle- 15:58, 2006 February 8

According to the fact sheet (reference #8) the total recoverable reserves are estimated to be 335,000,000,000 barrels, not 1,700,000,000 barrels. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.231.123.164 (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Dispute
A factual dispute regarding the first companies involved in the tar sands. The Globe and Mail is doing a series of feature articles on the oil sands this week (starting on Saturday Jan 26). A letter to the editor was posted on Jan 28, 2008 with the following information, which is in conflict with what is included on the wikipedia page. I do not know who is correct, although the letter writer is pretty sure in his recollection:

Walter Petryschuk of Sarnia writes “Suncor Energy did not exist in 1967 and was a product of the next decade….Rather, the Sun Oil Company of Philadelphia financed the first tar sands extraction plant. Its CEO was the head of the majority-owning Pew family. He was the force that made it happen. Company folklore has it that the project would have been abondoned had it not been for his eadership and determination during that first decade. Alberta should erect a statue in honour of Mr. Pew’s pioneering initiative.” 24.215.117.117 (talk) 20:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's a conflict, although perhaps wording could be clearer. At Suncor's History page following the link "The Oil Sands Story (1960s, 1970s & 1980s)" we find

"1962 Sun Company reduces interest to 55% in Sun-Canadian (a joint partnership with a company called Canadian Oil)...", "1963 Sun Oil invests almost a quarter-billion dollars in the Great Canadian Oil Sands project..." and "1979 Suncor Inc. forms when all the Canadian operations of Sun Company Inc. are amalgamated with Great Canadian Oil Sands...." LeadSongDog (talk) 22:14, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Suncor Energy Inc. is the successor in interest to Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited (GCOS), which built the major first oil sands plant. It has a complicated pedigree. Sun Oil Company of Philadelphia created GCOS in 1953 to build the oil sands plant. Sun Oil merged GCOS with its other Canadian interests to create Suncor Inc in 1979, sent Suncor public in 1992, and sold its remaining interest in Suncor in 1995. Meanwhile, Sun Oil Company changed its name to Sun Company in 1976, got out of the oil production business, and changed its name to Sunoco, Inc in 1998. Sunoco in Canada is unrelated to Sunoco in the US. For further information see the "Which Sunoco Are You Looking For?" bifurcation page at http://sunoco.com/ RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:50, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Albian Sands
Article had been speedied, leaving red link here. I've recreated a stub and provided some refs, but it needs work to avoid repetition. LeadSongDog (talk) 14:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

broken link
Citation 18 is a broken link. I'm removing it. Moonbug (talk) 00:05, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

The article is not NPOV
The article essentially goes into great detail extolling the benifits of the Athabasca Oil sands and pays short shift to the environmental concerns.

Take this part as an example:

"Canada is a minor source of greenhouse gases, producing about 2% of world emissions of carbon dioxide. The United States, which has not signed the Kyoto Protocol, is the world's largest emitter at a fluctuating 25% of the total. China is the second largest emitter at 20%, but as a developing country is exempt from controls. Its economy has been growing rapidly, and as a result the International Energy Agency expects it to exceed the U.S. as the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide by about 2008. Other developing countries in Asia and Africa have also been increasing their emissions rapidly, and most European countries have missed their reduction targets. Against this background, Canada's developments in the oil sands are relatively minor."

Essentially its an argument that Canada should keep doing what its doing and ignore the possible environmental impact because there are others who are worse then us in this regard and those that are trying harder to meet international commitments probably won't pull it off anyway.

Furthermore the 2% figure for Canada's total world emissions seems to exist solely to mislead readers. Its a small number and that is the reason it is being cited. If one takes a closer look at the 2% figure then it no longer seems that "...Canada's developments in the oil sands are relatively minor." If we presume that every country in the world gets an equal share of the world wide emissions then Canada is producing significantly above its fair share with 2% as there are ~130 countries in the world.

Now that is a pretty unusual method of dividing up the total allowed emissions so let us consider another view. Everyone in the world gets an equal share. Then 31 million Canadians, out of a world population of ~6 billion, make up 2% of the emissions. Clearly far more then their fair share. Furthermore this section precedes to slap China for its 20% of the worlds emissions but with ~1.5 billion people China's per capita world emissions are significantly lower then Canada's.

In other words this small section of Wikipedia is designed not to inform the general public but to mislead them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.87.155 (talk) 21:25, 4 May 2007 (UTC).


 * The article goes into great detail about the Athabasca Oil Sands because some people have put a lot of work into researching it, and says little about the environmental impact because nobody has done any research and come up with any hard facts. If you have any hard facts, feel free to add them. However, don't add any nebulous factoids or off-topic information about the Amazon Rain Forest because we don't really need any more of those.
 * On the 2% solution - it's a numbers game and 2% is a small number. It really doesn't matter what Canada does about greenhouse gases because Canada has fewer people than metropolitan Tokyo, and no matter how high the per capita emissions are, the total national emissions just aren't very big. Canada builds a new power plant every few years; China builds one EVERY FOUR DAYS. It does matter what China does, but China is not going to limit its emissions. China will become the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases either this year or next year. Also, somebody is emitting large amounts of undocumented CO2 into the atmosphere, and we don't know who they are. Speculation is that it is people burning charcoal in Africa and Asia, but nobody is monitoring that. So, if CO2 emissions cause global warming, then global warming is going to happen, Kyoto notwithstanding - so get ready for it. Now that's an opinion, as distinct from a fact. RockyMtnGuy 02:29, 5 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Off topic! Why do we need those figures about how much China and US emit? This is about Canada
 * Because CO2 emissions from the oil sands should be put in perspective. Oil sands account for about 5% of Canada's CO2 emissions, which is about 2% of the world.  Which makes the oil sands 0.1% of the world's CO2 emissions.  Which, IMO, makes the claims of some of the shriller environmental opponents to the oil sands seem somewhat alarmist (on the greenhouse gas front, anyway).  64.42.255.217 (talk) 16:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * See my suggestion for addition into references. Germane to this topic is a current article in the March 2009 National Geographic which adds perspective, here.  In sum, this is a dirty process and many are lining up to use the products that are extracted.  homebuilding75.37.228.250 (talk) 13:17, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

NPOV issues
This article is embarrassingly biased in favor of oilsands development. Considering the massive environmental impacts of the project, shouldn't these be a major focus near the top of the article? Instead 95% of the article is all gung-ho about development, while environmental considerations get a small poorly-written paragraph at the end, filled with weasel words and edited to remove anything of substance. For shame. Ultiam 19:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Agreed


 * By all means, write a better section on environmental issues (just make sure it's well referenced). By the same token, if you feel something is NPOV, please point out the particular phrase/issue. Thank you. --Qyd 20:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree as well. I came here to see what all this environmental damage was, but found the environment section rather lacking. I am not familiar with the topic enough to add to the article at this point, but I would like to see more analysis of the environmental impact. vlado4 (talk) 21:25, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Discussed at greater length at Tar sands. I've added a seealso to this article.LeadSongDog (talk) 03:55, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that no one that knows anything about this stuff has taken the time to put in accurate information about environmental impacts, and the stuff that does get put in is poorly sourced and usually hopelessly biased, exaggerated, misleading or simply wrong. If you feel you can do better, please do, but if you put in garbage it'll be removed sooner or later. TastyCakes (talk) 21:15, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

tailings ponds
Could someone create a subsection on the tailings ponds, and the break-down of what chemicals they contain in all the various concentrations (averages)? I imagine there's some good references on this but I don't know what they are. I'm wondering about various ideas for processing the tailings -- for example, perhaps a continuous cascading centrifuge process could remove all the water from the tailings, leaving a solid and "buryable" compound, perhaps dealing with much of the environmental problems with the tailings. Rybu (talk) 04:16, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

-- I get the impression people think the tailings ponds are a permanent fixture in the Alberta landscape. In a way they are as long as there is production. The Oil Sand companies have an agreement associated with there lease regarding reclamation. They violate this agreement - they lose their lease and all the money they put aside for reclamation. This agreement requires the oil company to put aside an amount of money with each barrel produced. They also have to reclaim the land within 4 years of mining it out. Some of the mines have an expected duration of 12 years and others 40 years. That means (using the 12 year mine as an example) there has to be grass and trees growing on the land within 16 years of the first cubic metre of oil sand removed from the mine. Failure to do this means the company loses their lease and the money set aside for reclamation - no deposit in this government controlled fund also means no lease. The tailings ponds are part of the extraction process and the reclamation process. As the mine production continues they will dyke-off a spent portion of the mine. The waste slurry of water and sand from the extraction process is pumped into it creating the tailings pond. When the sand settles enough, the water is drained off and re-used in the extraction. Eventual the dyked-off area wil become almost full. Since the sand still contains an oil residue and probably other contaminates naturally occurring in an oil field, a layer of heavy clay is then spread over the sand. Muskeg and topsoil is then spread on the clay. These top layers may have come directly from an operating part of the mine or from a dump site where these materials were stored for the reclamation process. Grass and trees are planted. At Syncrude, Wood Buffalo are allowed to roam. The herd now exceeds 300. Suncor has created a bird sanctuary. I do not deny that the oilsands are a source of pollution. I would like to to know how much in comparison to other industries or even oil refining (nobody seems to focus on that part of the oil process). The Fort McMurray area is naturally polluted as the Athabasca runs directly through the oil sand deposits due to the natural geography. The water has a natural oil residue. I can also imagine some environmentalists seeing these reclaimed areas for the first time marking them off to "protect them from the oil companies" and then see their faces when they are told they are standing on a spent mine.¬¬¬¬Guy from Fort Mac —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.88.131.44 (talk) 21:07, 17 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi there. I was more interested in the precise chemical contents of the tailings ponds.  Are there publically available chemical analyses of the contents of the liquids in a tailings pond?   I assume this knowledge is readily available but I don't know where to look.  Presumably it's largely water and various hydrocarbons -- but what hydrocarbons, in what quantities, and what else is in the tailings ponds? Maybe a more apt question would be, what is present in the tailings ponds that are not present in the original oil sands deposits? Thanks. Rybu (talk) 01:24, 11 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The tailing ponds contain a mixture of water, clay, sand and residual bitumen. Since the bitumen itself is chemically very complex, the chemical analysis of the tailings will be very complex. However, in terms of overall toxicity, I don't think it would be much different than the original oil sands. The real problem with the tailings is that they contain a lot of very fine silt, which will take decades to settle out of the water before the ponds can be reclaimed.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 06:09, 14 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Tailings pond water is sampled often, but I doubt that you'll be able to get a good public source of this information. If you don't need to be too exact, tailings water contains plenty of calcium, magnesium, sodium, sulfate, and chlorides. pH is basic, normally around 8.5. Also, there are a fair number of mercaptans and cyclical hydrocarbons dissolved in the water. Most of the bitumen that is not extracted ends up on the beaches and a tiny bit is in the fine tailings. The dissolved oils are mostly in the naptha range. As for what's in the water that's not in the oil sand, nothing appreciable. The extraction and upgrading process is relatively sulf-contained. In some operations caustic is added to enhance extraction. That would go to the ponds. Also, some anti-scaling chemicals need to be added in high concentrations at some operations. All of this information is from experience, so take it as you wish. I cannot think of any public information that I've seen that goes into depth. IceFisher (talk) 14:26, 13 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks. If that's the case then my original suggestion should work perfectly. A continuous cascading centrifuge process is precisely what you need to speed up the separation of water from silt.   It would increase the overall expense of the tarsands operation but it would allow you to produce a solid waste instead of a liquid waste -- avoiding the need for tailings ponds.  Has anyone done any work on the economics of such a process?  Rybu (talk) 06:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you mean by a continuous cascading centrifuge, but the oil sand mines already use mechanical means like centrifuges (I think they call them hydro-cyclones) to separate out larger sand particles. The problem, I believe, is that to get rid of all of the tiny particles this way you need too many cylones to be economical.  You can also do things chemically, adding thickeners like gypsum or polymers to flocculate the particles.  The new (proposed) oil sands mines are looking at using new technology on the tailings issue, the Joslyn mine, for example, says they're planning to use "dry tailings" technology, which apparently just means they produce a lot more solid or nearly solid waste and a lot fewer tailings suspended in water (resulting in much smaller tailing ponds and faster reclamation time).  TastyCakes (talk) 14:53, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * TastyCakes has it fairly right. I've worked with tailings very much in the past, and centrifuges are simply uneconomical. The greatest problem with the fines that come out of the oilsands is that they have high zeta potentials and molecules repel eachother. While centrifuging can be used to accelerate and settling, you have to realise just how slow the settling of mature fine tailings is. In the first three years, the mixture settles to 30% solids. After that though, it takes decades just to get another 5%. That requires a lot of centrifuging to speed up. IceFisher (talk) 14:16, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Environmental section
I think the environmental section is pretty flaky at the moment. It says 359 million CM are authorized for use in the oil sands, is that how much is actually used? If the statement of 0.4% is correct later in the section, that is 31% or 110 million CM. Is the long talk about Canada's failure to live up to its Kyoto promises really necessary, considering the article claims oil sands production makes up 3.5% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions? And is the 80kg of greenhouse gas emissions agreed on, and how does that compare to regular oil production/refining? I believe I heard Shell disputing the number recently. What is this ICO2N, is it appropriate to talk about it here or is this falling into the realm of advertisement? TastyCakes (talk) 21:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
 * You're right, it is flaky. It's been aggregated from a number of POV sources, some masquerading as objective, others more overt.  It is at best difficult to distinguish which are reliable.  The 80kg is sourced to a Pembina Institute advocacy piece.  That document references another of their documents.  It conveniently ignores the fact that different plants are implemented with different process technologies.LeadSongDog (talk) 02:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I also get the feeling that it is flaky. There is a lot of selective quoting of statistics. For instance, comparing water use of oil sands projects to that of the city of Calgary is highly misleading. Having seen both, I know that the Athabasca is a much, much bigger river than the Bow, and the Bow has a lot more users. According to Alberta Environment, 70% of the flow of the Bow River is allocated to consumers, while only 2% of the flow of the Athabasca River is allocated. Other sources state that the oil sands projects use about 23% of their allocation of 1.8% of the flow, which is probably where the 0.4% figure came from. To check, I Googled some numbers from other sources: 1) The average flow of the Athabasca is estimated to be 859 m3/sec, 2) oil sands draws (mining and in-situ) are projected to be 15 m3/sec by 2015. According to my pocket calculator that's 1.7% of the average flow of the river. I fail to see how that is a problem. And I suspect the greenhouse gas numbers are similarly flaky. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 02:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The most authoritative numbers for CO2 emissions should be at this Environment Canada site.LeadSongDog (talk) 04:42, 4 August 2008 (UTC)
 * There really does need to be coverage of the environental concerns.  What are the risks?  What are the efforts being made?  What are the future implications. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 22:20, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I think the oil sands article does a better job of describing environmental concerns. Perhaps a lot of that could be cut and paste into this article.  TastyCakes (talk) 22:24, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

please add this reference
"The Canadian Oil Boom" by Robert Kunzig National Geographic magazine March 2009. HomeBuilding75.37.228.250 (talk) 13:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

biggest mine in the world
Does this claim have a reference? It seems somewhat dubious to me. I suppose area wise it could be the largest, but volume wise I'd say it definitely isn't. I think that should be spelled out if you call it the "biggest mine in the world"... TastyCakes (talk) 18:52, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
 * You would have to pick your criteria. On area I don't think there's anything that comes close to Syncrude. On volume perhaps Chuquicamata might. On production rate perhaps North Antelope Rochelle (ca.90 Mton of coal/year)? On proven reserve tonnage? On income? On investment? On employee count? From the context, area is clearly the criterion meant in this claim. LeadSongDog (talk) 03:54, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * There seem to be a lot of candidates. The ones I found in a few minutes of surfing are:
 * Hibbing, Minnesota
 * Brigham Canyon, Utah
 * Fushing, China
 * Nchanga, Zambia
 * Mirny, Russia
 * Kalgoorlie, Australia
 * Everybody has a different definition of biggest. Biggest in what? Most likely the Syncrude mine wins on total area. But someone will have to measure all these mines, to be certain.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 04:18, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, what counts as mine area? There is a lot of area in Syncrude that is not strictly a mine (plant, tailings ponds etc).  Is "disturbed area" as is given now appropriate for comparison?  Even if we did go and compare it to a list of other mines, wouldn't that pretty much be original research?  My general feeling is that if we can't find an article (or any source) that makes the claim that we might as well not say it... TastyCakes (talk) 07:10, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Geological description
I think the article would benefit from at least a basic description of the geology of the oil sands. My understanding is that the bulk of the bitumen is in the McMurray formation, which is divided into 3 parts (upper, middle, lower) and that the formation is anywhere from a few meters deep to hundreds of meters deep. Does anyone know more on the subject? TastyCakes (talk) 00:04, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Fort the open pit mines it's the McMurray Formation. Same for SAGD south of Fort Mac. Further south, in the Cold Lake area, it can be the Clearwater Formation (on top of the McMurray). To the west, heavy oil is extracted from the Wabiskaw Member of the Clearwater Formation. In the Peace River Area, it's the equivalent Bluesky Formation. --Qyd (talk) 14:36, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree that a section on how this incredible geological formation came to exist would be very useful and interesting. Fig (talk) 15:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Bitumen Extraction
Does anyone know where the 75% recovery number for CHWE comes from? That is based off of a single separation cell, as far as I know. Actual recovery is in the 90% range. It's surprisingly hard to find citations for this, so if you know where the 75% number came from, perhaps I can update from there? IceFisher (talk) 14:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Cancel that, was able to find reference for >90%. 204.209.24.2 (talk) 15:25, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Perhaps the article could also mention the shrinkage factor of bitumen when it's upgraded to SCO? As I understand it, this is typically a little under 90%, I don't have a source handy for this though.  TastyCakes (talk) 15:30, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Shrinkage? Meaning what? We discuss that 1 BOE of methane or syngas plus 6 bbl of bitumen yield 6 bbl of SCO if that's what you mean (rough numbers to avoid checking the ones in the article).  As SCO is less dense than bitumen, there's a proportional volumetric offset if that's what you meant. Or is it something else? LeadSongDog  come howl  17:48, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen the 6 bbl of bitumen will yield 6 bbl of SCO, do you know where that came from? In the numbers I've seen, operations will say they produce x bbls of bitumen, but those x bbls of bitumen are converted into fewer barrels of SCO, plus a few other products which I don't really know anything about.  It might vary depending on the upgrading method, but in general I think it's safe to say you get fewer barrels of SCO out than bitumen in, 87% was the assumption I saw.  All volumetrically, not by weight. TastyCakes (talk) 17:56, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe that addition of syngas is the process Shell uses? As I understand it Syncrude and Suncor use an upgrading process that cracks the bitumen into smaller hydrocarbon chains, releasing hydrogen and maybe CO/CO2 as a byproduct, while Shell adds hydrogen to avoid these emissions, and decrease (eliminate?) the shrinkage factor as well.  I don't really know enough about the processes to comment though... TastyCakes (talk) 18:00, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Could it be my memory was playing tricks, confusing production with upgrading? The OSTR report is an excellent read. It discusses lots of options. The syngas aproach is what Nexen is using. Per p.56, 10% of the production converted to syngas can upgrade the remaining 90% to 40API SCO. At pp.18, 62 they say coke is burned at Suncor and Lloydminister but this is a high-CO2 choice. It's stored at Syncrude. At p.52 (fig 7.1) they say current (2004) use of natural gas is 1980 cu ft/bbl SCOLeadSongDog come howl  20:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * It depends on what process you use. Take 100 barrels of bitumen, add hydrogen, and you get 110 barrels of sweet, light, crude oil. Even better, consider "refinery gain", in which the refinery process 100 barrels of oil and produces 110 barrels of refined products. Your 100 barrels of bitumen has turned into 120 barrels of gasoline. (It's all about volume versus mass).RockyMtnGuy (talk) 20:41, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * So is that what's confusing us then? That the Shell process has a refinery gain while the Suncor and Syncrude processes have a refinery loss between bitumen and SCO?  TastyCakes (talk) 21:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't offhand know who's using what process, but there are basically two ways to upgrade bitumen to SCO: Add hydrogen or remove carbon. If you add hydrogen, you will get a volume gain, if you remove carbon, you will get a volume loss. However, if you take the carbon removed and convert it to syngas, you get a volume gain. On a mass basis the balance is more meaningful.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 19:57, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

History
I think the article should include (probably in the History chapter) information about when (in geological times) this stuff was formed (or do people still believe it was created on 16 October 4004 b.C.?) Albmont (talk) 12:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
 * When you say stuff, do you mean the rock or the bitumen? The age of the oil sands is Barremian to Albian, and it is stated in the McMurray Formation article. The bitumen was formed ever since. The Athabasca Oil sands are not so much geological or stratigraphical units, but more geographic and economic entities. --Qyd (talk) 12:57, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree with Albmont's sentiment, the geology of the oil sands still seems a little thin in this article. TastyCakes (talk) 16:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

name of article
''See talk:oil sands. Just because this article is called "oil sands" doesn't mean that the generic is not tar sands, the more usual term.''

The name "oil sands" is propaganda. Either the original name that was historically used, the Athabasca Tar Sands, or something actually descriptive (like Western Canada bitumen deposits) would be acceptable and neutral (albeit for different reasons). All of the material on the web that calls it "oil sands" seems to be propaganda by industry proponents, whereas you find a relatively neutral range of commentary by searching on the term "tar sands". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.46.232 (talk • contribs) 07:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)‎
 * This has been discussed to death. See the archives. LeadSongDog come howl!  08:18, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

CO2 emissions
I think the article should mention the differences between "well to wheels" CO2 emissions and "well to pump" CO2 emissions. By the former, oil sands emissions are only 5 to 15% higher than conventional oil (according to this article) while by the latter they are significantly worse. The difference is caused by the fact that 70 to 80% of emissions are from end use, such as being burned in a car (again according to the article above). TastyCakes (talk) 17:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

New text just added, hopefully meets this concern, but tailpipe emissions definitely needs its own article, as does wells to wheels perhaps:

--- Like all oil sands the process is extremely carbon intensive, and carbon footprint arguments have been significant in many political debates. As the primary users of oil sands derived crude are in the US, and the primary use of that crude oil is to be refined for gasoline for use in vehicles, the argument that tar sands are less carbon-intensive than coal is thus suspect at best: mile for mile, coal is not necessarily as high carbon as tar sands. Nissan and GM cite numerous studies to prove this .

Politically, the export of an extremely heavy carbon source by one G7 country to another, and its potential export to India and China, may create a race to the bottom in carbon emissions controls, one that (via climate change and ocean acidification affects most negatively the many countries in the Pacific across which the tankers must pass). Thus the tar sands represent a diplomatic and military problem well beyond their raw carbon emissions and have been extremely controversial. ''See the pipelines Enbridge Northern Gateway, TransCanada Keystone XL and Kinder Morgan, all of which have attracted unusual protests including condemnations by Nobel Peace Prize winners. . It has been called "the world's biggest carbon bomb" .''

Privately, the Canadian government has admitted there is no "credible scientific evidence" to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and Government of Alberta's claims that its tar sands operations are "sustainable". The European Union officially rejected this claim when it effectively banned tar sands crude import.

On February 3, 2012, Canadian Environment Minister Peter Kent announced that a longstanding refusal to monitor the Tar Sands' environmental impact would be corrected. This followed on an outright public condemnation of the Alberta government's practices by John Baird and David Schindler in 2008-9. It was unclear how independent the monitoring could be nor how involved those First Nations, on whose traditional lands and waters tar sands operations most impact, would be. The Northern Gateway project is opposed absolutely by 61 First Nations in BC who "refuse" all "dirty oil" being transported over their lands and waters, as this has been implicated in cancers in Fort MacKay downstream. ---

Keep stuff relevant to process/technology in oil sands which hopefully will be renamed NPOV bituminous sand deposit soon - see Talk:Oil sands. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.226.204 (talk) 12:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Canadian Oil Sands?
Why is this article, mainly limited to the Athabasca region, the only article on the Canadian oil sands?


 * It isn't, see Oil sands, Northern Gateway, Keystone XL and Athabasca River all of which have some links that need to be added here.


 * Technically though Peace River bitumen deposit and Cold Lake bitumen deposit should have separate articles, but then you'd need one Canadian bitumen article to cover all the political and diplomatic and economic issues. We aren't talking about just another "reservoir" here, and what you find on google reflects that reality.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.226.204 (talk) 12:57, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Although the Athabasca reserves are more significant than the Cold Lake and Peace River regions, in general the Albertan/Canadian oil/tar sands are discussed as a whole. This can be seen, for instance, both on various Government of Alberta websites regarding the oil sands and in national and foreign publications referring to 'Canadian reserves'. These sources do not use Athabasca oil sands and Canadian oil sands interchangeably, and concentrating this article mainly on the Athabasca oil sands is misleading - as is using statistics to represent the Athabasca region that in actuality describe the total area of the Canadian oil sands. As peak oil debates rage and with citations of Canada's reserves second only to Saudi Arabia abound, I think it is important here to not misrepresent Canada's resources. While I am not denying the importance of the Athabasca oil sands, I do think it would be more logical to have a Canadian oil sands page with the Athabasca region as a separate, or sub section. 178.25.33.109 (talk) 16:43, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, there should be separate articles on the Peace River and Cold Lake oil sands, and maybe there should be an overarching article called Canadian oil sands. Hopefully someone knows enough about the other two to get the article started...  TastyCakes (talk) 16:56, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There are actually four major Canadian oil sands areas: the three in Alberta (Athabasca, Peace River, Cold Lake), and a fourth on Melville Island in the Arctic Archipelago. The last is not usually mentioned since it is very remote and not likely to be developed in this century. There are also a number of smaller ones. The Athabasca deposit is the largest and the only one which is surface mineable, which is why it gets all the attention. I realize that there should be a Canadian oil sands article covering all of them, but someone will have to write the Peace River, Cold Lake, and Melville Islands oil sands articles to make it complete. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 02:39, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * But there are active SAGD operations in the others, right? Doesn't Imperial have a SAGD project in Cold Lake?  TastyCakes (talk) 16:17, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the Imperial project is actually cyclic steam stimulation (CSS), but yes, the Peace River and Cold Lake deposits do have in-situ projects developed in them.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I started a stub on Melville Island tar sands. Geo Swan (talk) 15:58, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Melville Island oil sands would be a better name. It might be a bit more difficult to find information on it. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 18:57, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I renamed it... TastyCakes (talk) 19:14, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Where is the section on cancer?
Since 2009 there have been reliable reports of downstream cancer. Doctors reporting this have been suppressed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.46.232 (talk • contribs) 07:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)‎

Natural gas and water consumption
Preston Manning and Peter Lougheed, prominent Alberta political leaders, both take the position that free abuse of water and preferential access to natural gas for tar sands extraction must stop, and that there must be no more filth dumped into any rivers. The Obama administration has asked Alberta to export the gas, not the dirty oil. All this is under-reported in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.46.232 (talk • contribs) 07:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)‎

pipelines
Two pipeline projects, Keystone XL and Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines, have been criticized for extreme environmental risks over and above the carbon-intensive, water-intensive and natural-gas wasting process and river oil dumping that happens in Alberta itself. Some calculations have been published and studies reporting that one or both pipelines assume an unrealistic expansion of the Tar Sands projects. 

A third project, Kinder Morgan TransMountain pipeline, moves tar sands crude out via the Port of Vancouver now and is proposed to be twinned.

The implications of these pipeline projects would be to increase pressure to approve unwise expansion and deplete the Tar Sands using today's dirty technology. As opposed to lab technologies that turn the bitumen to methane for normal gas well extraction, and so on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.46.232 (talk • contribs) 07:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)‎

more useful sources
Some more sources on the above and other issues:


 * "ethical landmines" following same logic as "ethical oil"
 * British newspapers and public scoff at "ethical oil" as Canada heavily lobbies British politicians
 * BC Premier declares that Alberta owns the BC coastline, but First Nations apparently don't
 * Enbridge falsifies poll in support of Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines
 * More NG stuff
 * astroturfing by Conservative Party of Canada to pretend foreigners not Canadians are behind opposition to Northern Gateway creates fake impression of support for this view so Stephen Harper can pretend he is responding to public pressure when attacking Canadians he claims are foreign-funded
 * Alaska gas competes with Tar Sand oil
 * Kinder Morgan expands pipeline over protests in BC
 * Canada gets "colossal fossil" award for sabotaging climate talks

WP:RS should be satisfied for the facts in the above sources, but they're not all neutral, so quote them on facts rather than take all statements' shading into your text. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.177.46.232 (talk • contribs) 07:52, 7 January 2012 (UTC)‎

edits by anon user
I have reverted recent edits of anon user. First, these information is already covered in relevant sections in more neutral way. If necessary, please add necessary information to existing sections. The lead of the article is not the place for expansive description of impacts. Second, these edits are of highly debatable neutrality, especially in regards to how they are worded. Concerning the talk page, please to not change the order of discussion sections or their titles providing reasons why it is really necessary. And last but not least, please sign your comments. Thank you. Beagel (talk) 13:30, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Why was this removed?
The effects of the extraction process has lead to controversy.

99.181.159.117 (talk) 23:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Well imho the removal was justified since the line as well as the sourcing need improvement (journalistic report rather than a comment/opinion piece). Moreover the line didn't really reflect the content of the source. Having said all that, I think the principal idea of adding critical information on the exploitation of tar sand regarding resource use and pollution is indeed warranted. But it should be done with a somewhat different text and different sources, which are partially already available in other parts of the article. All that is needed here is an appropriate integration into the lead.--Kmhkmh (talk) 09:38, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, that information, which is certainly valid, in fact, so well-known it needs no sourcing, should be supported by factual reports of the actual and possible problems resulting from the extraction processes. The cited opinion piece addresses difficulties the scientific community in Canada has had in establishing monitoring of the situation. User:Fred Bauder Talk 11:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * By definition, an opinion piece is biased. That is why we don't treat them as reliable sources. Certainly there has been controversy, but choosing how to characterize that controversy requires sources that can be trusted to be objective. It would be just as easy to say that the goal of extracting hydrocarbon fuels, irrespective of method, has been the main source of controversy. We need sources that meet wp:RS and wp:NPOV. LeadSongDog come howl!  17:55, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Though I agree with you regarding the removal, your claim regarding opinion pieces is not quite true. An opinion piece may or may not be an acceptable source, that depends on the particular opinion piece and what you want to source. Stating an opinion does make a source unreliable per se. Having said that opinion piece should be treated rather carefully and large number of them which are focusing on spin doctoring or promoting rather unfounded opinions cannot not be used. One should however not confuse the latter with opinion pieces as such or even get the false idea, that academic/scientific publications wouldn't state opinions.--Kmhkmh (talk) 21:58, 28 July 2012 (UTC)
 * Better in Climate change controversy? 99.181.132.254 (talk) 04:55, 29 July 2012 (UTC)

Oil sand companies
Are there really no new information about the status of the large amount of projects under that point?! Most are "approved", "under construction" or "applied for" and one (2011) "anounced". "Operating" (green color) are only 5 of the projects on the list, and that didn't change for over 2 years, I think more 3 than 2. At this time 3 "under construction" projects were listed, "Start up" was 2007 and 2008 for the 2 SunCor-Projects and 2010 "Start Up" for the Royal Dutch Shell project, Shell got another 6 projects, one of these "operating" since 2002 at 155,000 barrels a day. Canadas oil production increased in the last years, and the oil sands where the reason. The onshore oil fields in the populated areas are already mature and off-shore oil or oil fields in the unsettled (except forr very few small towns, mostly from the Indians that live there already for thousand year) are not developed yet due to the high cost and the available oil from the oil sands!

If someone has a reference I would update the "graphic" too as far as I can... sorry for my bad english and greetings from Berlin :) Kilon22 (talk) 14:36, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Imperial oil, "Operating" (2012) - why not green?
Every other "Operating" is marked green, the orange this Operating from Imperial oil got is for "Approved". Just an error or what is up? The table should be more actual or the numbers of production :>

Kilon22 (talk) 18:04, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

distortion in lede
the recent attempt to ask for a citation for "tar sands" (duh) caused me to look at this article, which I generally shy away from because of its potential for propaganda wars, but I noted this "deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil," .... bitumen is extremely heavy crude oil seems a wanton distortion. It's a carboniferous goop that heavy crude oil can be processed from, but it is not oil, and is a long ways from being crude oil. Can someone justify to me why that is there, or should I just remove that phrase as ..... propaganda (which, to me, it is).Skookum1 (talk) 06:11, 18 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Here's the source, from our bitumen/asphalt article:
 * "Oil sand is a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay or other minerals, water and bitumen, which is a heavy and extremely viscous oil that must be treated before it can be used by refineries to produce usable fuels such as gasoline and diesel. Bitumen is so viscous that at room temperature it acts much like cold molasses." Source: Alberta Energy.


 * I'm not sure exactly what the difference from bitumen to "extremely heavy crude oil' is; both are forms of petroleum that have lost volatiles. Maybe an actual expert will chime in.--Pete Tillman (talk) 07:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The government of Alberta is hardly a non-partisan source :-|. I believe there was a name-war on Oil sands vs the title tar sands also.  Won by overwhelming use of industry sources, and by cites from industry-allied governments.  If what you say is true than "Sydney Oil Pits" and "LaBrea Oil Pits" are mandated as titles, also.Skookum1 (talk) 07:30, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have difficulties to understand, what you actually want to change or what you're asking for. You're asking for a source confirming what exactly? And which term do you want to remove from the lead? Oil sands, tar sands or none?
 * As far as the names are concerned both belong in the article, as they both are in widespread use (references can easily be googled). And that applies regardless of what the government of alberta may or may not call them and whether its website is to be considered partisan or not.--Kmhkmh (talk) 20:33, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What I was responding to was your compliant reply to the oil-troll who wanted "tar sands" deleted and called us a bunch of names for ever including it (see my other post above here somewhere, where I looked into who he was). I couldn't easily find - or never took the time to look for - what it was you'd done to "take care of it".  Newspeakers require that old language be obliterated in order to establish their own; either by outright deletion or by media inundation of the preferred term to make it seem more in public use; wide in industry use, yes, and even going way back; the iconography of the tar sands in the Canadian identity, by that term, was accepted and used by industry in the Trudeau years, when that shibboleth of Albertan beliefs was actively promoting them, under that name...as was the govt of Alberta of the day.  Yes, the government and industry terminology has to be included; but a vigilant watch - and background checks - are needed to patrol this; and I'm among those who think this article should be called "tar sands" and not pander to the oil lobby's pretense that bitumen "is a form of oil", or (gaagh) extremely crude oil.  They also talk about the Gateway pipeline carrying "crude oil" and more......language is politics, politics is language; this is one of those articles where that reflexive axiom is inescapable.  And where the paid p.r. machine will lurch into motion, either via established accounts of nasty, whining IP interlopers like the 71. IP in question.Skookum1 (talk) 21:36, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Oh. Pete Tillman (talk) 00:04, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This make no sense to me. I never deleted the term "tar sands" from the article nor did anybody else manage to remove it (permanently) and it is currently still in the lead. So what are you talking/complaining about? The only thing missing is the attribute "historical" and there are no objections to readd that either (based on a proper source).--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:05, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

p.r. trolls often don't make sense: in fact, that's their job (spewing nonsense and discord). But he said that the wording, including that "historical" bit, was "deceitful" (liars often accuse others of lying), and your response was "thanks for the pointer, I fixed it.". I'm not accusing you of anything, I just want to know in what way you read his "pointer" and how you "fixed it".Skookum1 (talk) 00:03, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I explained that already in a section further up, I removed the phrase "historically known as" (based on the IP complaint and the weak sourcing).
 * Now do you want of concrete change in the current lead or not? And if so what is it?--Kmhkmh (talk) 02:16, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Well, the term "historically" wasn't needed, as they're still called the tar sands, whether industry (or that IP address) likes it or not. It's fine the way it is now; I couldn't find the specific edit that you had done in reply to the IP troll (and troll it is, look at its edit history/diffs).  I'd prefer to see "commonly" included there, but that would take a lot of google-point-comparison; it's more commonly called the oil sands because of the media/p.r. avalanche advancing the industry-preferred term.Skookum1 (talk) 20:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Move from "Oil sands" to "Athabasca oil sands"
Just so you know, I'm moving some text from the "Oil sands" article to the "Athabasca oil sands article". It is only relevant to this article because the the Athabasca is the only major oil sands deposit in the world which is surface mineable. The other oil sands are not mineable, so other production techniques will have to be used on them. In fact, only a fraction of the Athabasca sands are mineable, so most of it will have to be produced using other techniques over the next 100 or so years. The total oil sands deposits in the world are bigger than the conventional oil deposits, so this is going to be very important in the very, very long term. The Orinoco oil sands in Venezuela are bigger than the Athabasca oil sands, so I want to emphasize that fact in the Oil sands article. There is a lot of politics around this whole issue of non-conventional oil, but I'm trying to avoid paying any attention to politics. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 23:39, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

Internal disagreement
This article says it's the largest of three deposits, including Peace River. OTOH, Peace River oil sands says that one is the smallest of FOUR. Someone who cares should probably fix this. Eaglizard (talk) 18:33, 25 January 2015 (UTC)


 * It's a bit of a technical issue. The fourth largest deposit, the Wabasca oil sands, lies underneath the Athabasca oil sands, so the two are often referred to as one (the Athabasca-Wabasca oil sands) since they occupy the same surface area, although they are geologically separate and distinct. In-situ oil sands wells in the area may have dual completions, one in the Athabasca and one in the Wabasca, and both zones produce to the same surface facilities. It is probably most proper to refer to the Peace River oil sands as being the smallest of the three major oil sands deposits in Alberta since the Wabasca is a smaller, secondary deposit. In fact there are about two dozen oil sands deposits in Alberta, but only the three largest (Athabasca, Peace River, and Cold Lake) are world-scale supergiant oil/bitumen reservoirs.RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:17, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Moving Projects to distinct article (or not?)
I'm currently working on updating the list of projects, which is based on 2007 data. Since the table was created there have been a huge number of new projects, which will make the table absurbly long. I have two possible solutions:


 * 1) Move the table to a new article, with more content (ie. project status), likely List of Athabasca Oil Sands Projects. Summarize the data with a paragraph or short table.
 * 2) Include only major projects in the table (over 1 million bbls/day projected). This appears to have been the original intent of the table.

Any thoughts? Samuell Lift me up or put me down 23:01, 21 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Just an idea, but you could do two things.  First, the separate article you describe.  Second, you could include a table of the biggest ones here without any elaboration, and also provide a link to the comprehensive and more detailed list in a a sentence about all the other ones not in the table.  NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 02:09, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I made an list for a new article, right now it has all the mining projects and a selection of in situ projects. It is in My Sandbox. Comments? Samuell Lift me up or put me down 02:55, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

"Historically known as the Alberta tar sands"
Not only is this claim not supported by the source cited, but to make the claim accordingly, on a website that aspires to public trust, could be properly described only as openly deceitful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.17.130.17 (talk) 03:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the pointer, I fixed it.--Kmhkmh (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2012 (UTC)
 * "historically known as the Athabasca tar sands", however, IS the reality; the "oil sands" terminology was not invented nor in wide use until the 21st century and is known to have been coined as an oil industry p.r. term. Find me cites from Canadian geographic texts from the last century thgat use |"Athabasca oil sands"...you won't, the term was "Athabasca tar sands" in all the textbooks that I and others were raised with, and until recent times was also used by the industry and also academia, even industry-allied academia.  Also, given the Sydney Tar Ponds and LaBrea Tar Pits, if this title were to stand then shouldn't those be "Sydney Oil Ponds]] and LaBrea Oil Pits?? Skookum1 (talk) 07:16, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
 * I have no issue with term tar sands and removed the term "historically" only based on the IP complaint in connection with given source being weak/questionable but without verifying what the actual historic name was. If it turns out, that athabasca tar sands is indeed the historical I have no objection to include that information again, but please with a proper source this time. See also my posting further down.--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:18, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

I, personally, would be greatful if someone compiled citations that use this. If this is true, it is a clear case of partisan editing to title this article "Alberta Oil Sands". This being the case, they are the Tar Sands from which we extract Oil, regardless of environmental effects or economic benefits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.42.123.41 (talk) 00:46, 8 November 2013 (UTC) I colloquially remember in the late 1999s the Alberta TAR Sands being spoken of as a point of national pride - Canada has the largest source of OIL in the world.

I have an interesting habit of looking up IP addresses as to their location, so in looking up 71.17.130.17's location (Lloydminster SK) I noted his "contributions" and their overtly partisan tone, e.g. in the Robocall article [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robocall&diff=prev&oldid=507443355 removing "The Conservative Party has not released their records to investigators." ] without edit comment, and without challenge (the next edit was almost a month later) and on this article - Athabasca oil sands the tone of what he inserted says it all about what he's about. Quickly reverted within a minute by User:Mark Arsten I might add. The pretense that the term "tar sands" never existed is Orwellian in the extreme.... and I agree with 209.42.123.41 that "Athabasca" was the usage "when we were young". As for "Thanks for the pointer, I fixed it.--User:Kmhkmh", I have to ask, fixed what?? I see "tar sands" is in the lede now, despite various attempts to remove it and fight that term.... all of which is why I give this article (normally) a wide berth, along with the related 'history of oil sands' article, whatever its name is, which seems entirely a p.r. piece by industry but has weathered the test of WP:RS/WP:N and despite claims to NPOV, clearly isn't, and serves as spam...but oh well you can't fight progress, they say.... changing the language is apparently necessary for progress.....Mephistopheles would be so proud.Skookum1 (talk) 06:49, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robocall&diff=prev&oldid=507443355

@skookum1: You can see here what I fixed. Basically I removed the questionable source the IP complained about and the description as of the tar sands "historically known as", against of which I assumed the IP objecting. I did however not remove the term "Alberta tar sands" as such from the lead, because that is a widespread and established name for it today hence there is no good reason to remove it from lead (see ). If however the historic name was indeed "Alberta tar sands" feel free to reinsert the description as "historical" with a proper source.--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:58, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * P.S.: As far as the IP possible agenda is concerned. Do I understand you correctly that there is (ridiculous) argument/edit conflict over "oil sand" versus "tar sand" because "oil sand" supposedly sounds better? As far as that would be concerned, I think Wikipedia's approach regarding that is clear, it provides in doubt all names that are common in reputable literature (or more generally reputable media depending on the subject).--Kmhkmh (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I see my name was mentioned here, for references, this is the edit I reverted. Mark Arsten (talk) 16:02, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Was it not changed to "oil" to more accurately reflect what's actually there? There's no tar. It's kind of like how we say we're "filming" something on our phones. There's no film, it's just an old name.NerdNinja9 (talk) 19:26, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Article title - tar sands or oil sands?
One way to approach neutrality is to ask what were they called before they were seen as profits?  GoogleBooks-advanced-search easily lets us search by century, and verbatim phrases, which I did for the 19th century (1800-1899). I got
 * just 3 hits for Alberta and the verbatim phrase "oil sands"
 * but 3 pages of hits for Alberta and the verbatim phrase "tar sands", including the both the US and Canadian Geological Surveys.

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 10:52, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Language evolves and names change, though not all at once. In the case of the oil sands, we now know there's no actual tar there.  Perhaps next we'll stop saying we're filming things on our phones when there's no actual film involved.  This historical-usage-of-word argument has been pushed for a while now.  It proves nothing except what I just mentioned, that language evolves.  Perhaps it's time to stop repeating it.NerdNinja9 (talk) 19:35, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

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