Industry in Alberta
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The primary industries in Alberta, Canada are energy, lumber, farming and ranching.
While gold and other mining operations still exist from the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, they have diminished in importance as oil and gas extraction have achieved dominance in the 1980s and 1990s.
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[edit] The Energy Industry
[edit] The Alberta Oilpatch
Since the early 1940s, Alberta had supplied oil and gas to the rest of Canada and the United States. The Athabasca River region produces oil for internal and external use. The Athabasca Oil Sands contain the largest proven reserves of oil in the world. Natural gas has been found at several points, and in 1999, the production of natural gas liquids (ethane, propane, and butanes) totaled 172.8 million barrels (27,000,000 m³), valued at $2.27 billion. Alberta also provides 13% of all the natural gas used in the United States.
Notable gas reserves were discovered in the 1890s, when the town of Medicine Hat began using gas for lighting the town, and suppling light and fuel for the people, and a number of industries using the gas for manufacturing. In fact a large glassworks was established at Redcliff. When Rudyard Kipling visited Medicine Hat he described it as the city "with all hell for a basement."
[edit] Basic Stats 1
- In 2003, Alberta produced 629,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of conventional light, medium, and heavy crude, plus an additional 142,000 bbl/d of pentanes plus used for blending with heavy crude oil and bitumen to facilitate its transportation through pipelines.
- The conventional oil resource is estimated to have approximately 1.6 billion barrels of remaining established reserves.
- Conventional crude oil production (not including oil sands and pentanes plus) represented 38.6 per cent of Alberta ’s total crude oil and equivalent production and 25.5 per cent of Canada’s total crude oil and equivalent production.
- Alberta's oil sands reserve is considered to be one of the largest in the world, containing 1.6 trillion barrels of bitumen initially in place. Of this total, 174.5 billion barrels are considered to be remaining established reserves, recoverable using current technology under present and anticipated economic conditions. To date, about 2 per cent of the initial established resource has been produced.
- In 2003,total crude bitumen production in Alberta averaged 964,000 bbl/d.
- Disposition of Alberta ’s total crude oil and equivalent production in 2003 was approximately:
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- 62 per cent to the United States
- 24 per cent within Alberta
- 14 per cent to the rest of Canada
- In 2003, Alberta produced 4.97 Tcf of marketable natural gas.
[edit] Coal
Vast beds of coal are found extending for hundreds of miles, a short distance below the surface of the plains. The coal belongs to the Cretaceous beds, and while not so heavy as that of the Coal Measures in England is of excellent quality. In the valley of the Bow River, alongside the Canadian Pacific Railway, valuable beds of anthracite coal are still worked. The usual coal deposits of the Province of Alberta are of bituminous or semi-bituminous coal. These are largely worked at Lethbridge in southern Alberta and Edmonton in the centre of the province. Many other parts of the province have pits for private use.
[edit] Other industries
In 1999, lumber products from Alberta were valued at $4.1 billion of which 72% were exported around the world. Since forests cover approximately 59% of the province's land area, the government allows about 23,300,000 cubic metres to be harvested annually from the forests on public lands.
In the past, cattle, horses, and sheep were reared in the southern prairie region on ranches or smaller holdings. Currently Alberta produces cattle valued at over $3.3 billion, as well as other livestock in lesser quantities. In this region irrigation is widely used. Wheat, accounting for almost half of the $2 billion agricultural economy, is supplemented by canola, barley, rye, sugar beets, and other mixed farming.
Alberta is the richest province in Canada (GDP per capita wise) and if it were its own country, it would be ranked second richest in the world (after Luxembourg). The average Albertan salary is more than $7,000 US higher than the American average. If oil prices do not collapse, then within a few short years Albertans are expected to have not only the highest salaries in the world but also the highest quality of life.
A 2003 study by TD Bank Financial Group found that the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is the only Canadian urban centre to attain a U.S level of wealth while maintaining a Canadian-style quality of life, offering universal health care benefits. The study found GDP per capita in the corridor is 10 percent above average U.S. metropolitan areas and 40 percent above other Canadian cities.
[edit] See also
- Canadian Oil Patch, for the petroleum industry
