Glossary

Apportionment agreements
Alberta has an agreement with Saskatchewan that guarantees a certain amount of water will flow across the border. Fifty per cent of the water in each of the shared, major river basins, must be allowed to flow into Saskatchewan. This agreement is called an apportionment agreement.
Aquifer
An aquifer is an underground formation of permeable rock or loose material which can produce useful quantities of water when tapped by a well. Aquifers come in all sizes. They may be small, only a few hectares in area, or very large, underlying thousands of square kilometers of the earth's surface. They may be only a few meters thick, or they may measure hundreds of meters from top to bottom.
Asphaltene
A molecular substance found in crude oil.
Athabasca River
The Athabasca River, 1,231 km long, rises in the Columbia Icefield, flows north through Jasper National Park, then northeast past Fort McMurray, Alta, to Lake Athabasca; it is the southernmost headstream of the Mackenzie River, and its chief tributaries are the Pembina, Lesser Slave and McLeod rivers.
Beaver River
The Beaver River Basin is one of the smaller basins within the province of Alberta with a catchment area of about 14,500 km2. It begins at Beaver Lake and then flows through the urban centres of Bonnyville, Cold Lake and Grand Centre before extending east across the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and eventually emptying into Hudson Bay
Bitumen
Petroleum that exists in the semi-solid or solid phase in natural deposits. Bitumen is best described as a thick, sticky form of crude oil, so heavy and viscous (thick) that it will not flow unless heated or diluted with lighter hydrocarbons. At room temperature, it is much like cold molasses.
Boiler
A large furnace that burns fuel to produce steam for power, processing or heating.
Boreal Forest
The northernmost and coldest forest zone in the Northern Hemisphere is the boreal forest, forming a continuous belt 1000 km long across North America, Europe and Asia. It is the most extensive vegetation zone in Canada and covers significant areas of every province and territory.
Brackish Water
A mixture of freshwater and seawater that is saltier than fresh, but less salty than seawater. This type of water is not suitable for drinking. See also: Saline
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield makes up nearly half of Canada's total land area and is composed of Precambrian rocks - ancient, rounded rocks that form the nucleus of most of North America. In Canada, the Shield stretches from Labrador through to northern Quebec, Ontario, eastern and northern Manitoba, northern Saskatchewan and the very northeast corner of Alberta.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS)
A process that captures carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and stores them in geological formations deep inside the earth, instead of releasing them into the atmosphere.
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
A colourless, odourless, non-toxic radiative gas that is essential to plant and animal life. It is also emitted as a result of burning organic materials, including fossil fuels. It is the most common greenhouse gas produced by human activities.
Carbon intensity
The amount of carbon emitted for each unit of energy consumed.
Catalytic conversions
Helps transform hydrocarbons into more valuable forms.
Clearwater River
The Clearwater River is located in northwestern Saskatchewan approximately 500 kilometers from the city of Prince Albert
CO2 injection
Carbon dioxide is injected into the reservoir and dissolves in the bitumen to lower its viscosity (thickness) and improve its flow rate.
Cogeneration
A highly efficient energy system that produces both electricity and heat from one fuel source.
Coke
A hard, dry carbon substance produced by heating coal to a very high temperature in the absence of air. Coke is used in the manufacture of iron and steel.
Coker
The processing unit in which carbon is removed from bitumen to produce lighter hydrocarbons.
Coking
A refining process that removes carbon and breaks large bitumen molecules into smaller parts, converting heavy residual into lighter products and petroleum coke.
Cold Flow
A recovery method that pumps the oil out of the sands, often using progressive cavity pumps. This only works well in areas where the oil is fluid enough.
Columbia Icefield
The Columbia Icefield is located on the boundary of Banff and Jasper National Parks. One of the largest accumulations of ice and snow south of the Arctic Circle, it covers an area of nearly 325 square kilometers. The continuous accumulation of snow feeds eight major glaciers including the Athabasca, Dome, and Stutfield Glaciers, all visible from the Icefields Parkway. The Columbia Icefield's meltwater feeds streams and rivers that pour into the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific oceans.
Condensate
Liquid hydrocarbons separated from crude oil after production and sold separately.Crude oil.
The raw material refined into gasoline, heating oil, propane, petrochemicals, jet fuel, and other products.
Crude Oil
The raw material refined into gasoline, heating oil, propane, petrochemicals, jet fuel, and other products.
Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS)
CSS projects use a network of oil wells to inject steam into the oil reservoir to heat the bitumen. Once the bitumen is hot, it is recovered using the same wells. This is continued on a cyclic basis for a number of cycles until the recoverable bitumen is produced. The steam used to heat up the bitumen condenses to form water in the reservoir. Most of the condensed water is produced with the oil and is recycled and re-injected as steam.
Differential
The difference between posted prices for light oil versus a heavier grade of oil.
Diluted Bitumen (Dil-bit)
Typically 50 per cent bitumen diluted with 50% naphtha, produced in connection with oil sand production.
Distillation
Sorts mixtures of hydrocarbon molecules into their components.
Drainage Basin
A drainage basin is an extent of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea or ocean.
Ecosystem
An ecosystem is a geographical area where plants, animals, the landscape and the climate all interact together. Ecosystems have no particular size. An ecosystem can be as large as a desert or a lake or as small as a tree or a puddle.
Electric submersible pumps
A pump with an electric motor that can operate under water.
ES-SAGD
ES-SAGD stands for "Expanding Solvent-SAGD" and involves adding a solvent or mixture of solvents to the steam in the SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage) process.
Eutrophication
A process where bodies of water, such as lakes and streams, become over-enriched with nutrients, leading to excessive plant growth.
Existing licenses
New water allocations must not impact existing licenses.
Extraction Plant
Oil sand is mixed with hot water creating a slurry. The slurry is fed into a separation vessel where it separates into three layers - sand, water and bitumen. The bitumen is then skimmed off the top to be cleaned and processed further.
Extraction process
Oil sand is mixed with hot water creating a slurry. The slurry is fed into a separation vessel where it separates into three layers - sand, water and bitumen. The bitumen is then skimmed off the top to be cleaned and processed further.
Fort McMurray
Fort McMurray is located 435 kilometers northeast of Edmonton, about 60 kilometers west of the Saskatchewan border, nestled in the boreal forest at the confluence of the Athabasca River and the Clearwater River. Fort McMurray is the largest community in the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and today is best known for its association with the oil sands industry. With a diverse and multicultural community, Fort McMurray attracts people from all corners of Canada and the world.
Gasification technology
To turn petroleum coke (a by-product of the oil sands upgrading process) into synthetic gas. That synthetic gas could then generate power and hydrogen, thereby reducing reliance on natural gas.
Geothermal energy
Tapping geothermal energy buried deep within the ground to produce the heat and steam needed to remove bitumen from the oil sands.
Great Slave Lake
Great Slave Lake is the fifth-largest lake in North America and the tenth largest in the world. It is located in south-central North West Territories and its southern and eastern shores cut into the granite edge of the Canadian Shield. Great Slave Lake is cold, very deep (614 m) and is frozen eight months of the year.
Greenhouse Gases (GHG)
Gases that trap heat near the Earth's surface. These include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and water vapor. These gases occur through natural processes (such as ocean currents, cloud cover, volcanoes) and human activities (such as the burning of fossil fuels).
Greenhouse Gases Credits
A method of reducing GHG emissions by providing a total annual emissions cap and allowing the market to apply a dollar value to any shortfall, through trading. Companies that do not surpass the emissions cap will trade their resulting credits for money from polluters who surpass the cap. Credits can be exchanged between businesses or individuals who wish to lower their carbon footprint voluntarily.
Groundwater
Groundwater is found below the surface in the spaces between particles of rock and soil, or in crevices and cracks in rock. The water filling these openings is usually within 100 meters of the surface and much of the earth's fresh water is found in these spaces. Groundwater flows slowly through water-bearing formations (aquifers) at different rates. In some places, where groundwater has dissolved limestone to form caverns and large openings, its rate of flow can be relatively fast but this is exceptional.
Heavy Crude Oil
Oil having an API gravity less than 22.3°. Includes some oil that will flow, however slowly, but most heavy oil requires heat or dilution to flow to a well or through a pipeline.
Horizontal Wells
Wells which are drilled at angles greater than 70 from vertical that have the advantage of providing a large area of groundwater capture for a lower overall cost.
Hudson Bay
Hudson Bay is an immense inland sea that penetrates deeply into northeastern Canada. It is virtually landlocked but is joined to the Arctic Ocean to the north by Foxe Channel and Fury and Helca Straight and to the Atlantic Ocean on the east by Hudson Straight. The maximum length of the bay is 1500 km and its greatest width 830 km.
Hydrocarbons
A large class of liquid, solid or gaseous organic compounds, containing only carbon and hydrogen atoms - the basis of almost all petroleum products.
Hydrological cycle
The Earth's water is always in movement, and the water cycle, also known as the hydrologic cycle, describes the continuous movement of water on, above, and below the surface of the Earth.
Hydrotreating
Is used to help remove sulphur and nitrogen and add hydrogen to molecules.
In situ
Latin phrase meaning in its original place or in position; in-situ recovery refers to various methods used to recover deeply buried bitumen deposits. Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) and steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) are in-situ recovery methods, which include thermal injection through vertical or horizontal wells, solvent injection and carbon dioxide methods. Other technologies are emerging such as pulse technology and vapour recovery extraction (VAPEX).
In situ Combustion
A method of thermal recovery in which fire is generated inside the reservoir by injecting a gas containing oxygen, such as air. The heat generated by burning the heavy hydrocarbons in place produces hydrogen cracking, vaporization of light hydrocarbons and reservoir water in addition to the deposition of heavier hydrocarbons known as coke. The in-situ combustion process does not require water to produce the oil sands. (Schlumberger oilfield glossary website)
Injection Well
A well employed for injecting air, steam or fluids into an underground formation.
Lake Athabasca
Athabasca Lake, 7935 km2, is located in northeast Alberta and northwest Saskatchewan, and is the fourth-largest lake entirely in Canada. It is fed by the Athabasca and Peace rivers, and drains north via the Slave River into Great Slave Lake.
Laser
Liquid hydrocarbons are mixed with steam and then injected into the CSS wellbores and further transported as vapors to bitumen surrounding steamed areas between adjacent wells.
Light crude oil
Naturally occurring liquid petroleum which has a low density and flows freely at room temperature.
Lost Time injury
Lost time injuries occur when an employee sustains a work-related injury, which results in lost time from work after the day of the accident.
Mackenzie River System
The Mackenzie River system is 4,241 km long and is the second largest river system in North America (after the Mississippi River). Its total drainage basin of 1.8 million km2 is the largest of any river in Canada and its mean discharge of 9700 m3/s is second only to that of the St Lawrence. The lakes and rivers of the Mackenzie and its tributaries are open from mid-June to the beginning of November in the northerly areas.
Make-Up Water (Top-Up, or Refill Water)
The water used to replace water lost to evaporation, splash-out, leaks and backwashing.
Mining
The process or business of extracting valuable or useful solid materials, such as minerals, metals, and coal from the earth.
Mobile mining technology
An alternative to the traditional truck-andshovel system that is expected to reduce noise pollution, energy intensity and air emissions.
MtCO2
Million tonnes of carbon dioxide
Natural water supply
The hydrological cycle determines the location and amount of water in a region at any one time. The amount of water in a region, whether it be in the ground, in the air, or on the surface, is always variable.
Needs of the environment
Since all living things require water to live, some water is needed to maintain each ecosystem. While these specific amounts are not always known, it is certain the amount of water needed by an ecosystem varies from time to time.
Nitrogen oxide (NOx)
A highly reactive gas containing nitrogen and oxygen.
North Saskatchewan River
The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river flowing east from the Canadian Rockies to central Saskatchewan. It is one of two major rivers that join to make up the Saskatchewan River The Saskatchewan River system is the largest in western Canada.
Oil reservoir
A subsurface porous and permeable rock body that contains oil, gas or both.
Oil sands
Naturally-occurring mixtures of bitumen, water, sand and clay that are found mainly in the Athabasca, Peace River and Cold Lake areas of Alberta.
Peace River
The Peace River is 1,923 km long and originates in the Rocky Mountains of northern British Columbia and flows through northern Alberta. It is one of the principal tributaries of the Mackenzie River system. Formerly, the Peace was formed by the juncture of the Finlay River from the north and the Parsnip River from the south. Today the 2 rivers have been dammed near Hudson Point and have swelled to form Williston Lake. The Peace flows from the east arm of the lake, cuts through the Rocky Mountains and is joined by the Halfway and Beatton rivers from the north and the Pine River from the south. Just east of the BC-Alberta border it is joined by the Pouce Coupé. It cuts a deep gash, up to 11 km wide, across the northern Alberta prairie. At the Town of Peace River, it is joined by the Smoky River and swings abruptly north, meandering to near Fort Vermilion, where it turns east and, joined by the Wabasca River, flows into Wood Buffalo National Park and pours into the Slave River, whence its waters are carried to the Mackenzie.
Potable
Water that is fit for human consumption, but has not been treated.
Produced water
Water that is extracted from the earth from an oil or natural gas production well, or that is separated from crude oil, condensate, or natural gas after extraction.
Production well
The well that brings the bitumen from the reservoir to the surface.
Recordable Injury
Recordable injuries occur when an employee sustains a work-related injury, which requires medical attention.
Reef
Refinery
An oil refinery is an industrial process plant where crude oil is processed and refined into more useful petroleum products such as gasoline, jet fuel, plastics, detergents and fibers such as nylon and polyester. Oil refineries are large scale plants, processing from about a hundred thousand to several hundred thousand barrels of crude oil per day.
Reservoir
A subsurface porous and permeable rock body that contains oil, gas or both.
River basins
Drainage area of a river and its tributaries
SAGD (steam-assisted gravity drainage)
A thermal in situ or bitumen recover method, which consists of two horizontal wells drilled one above the other into the oil sands formation, followed by steam injected into the upper well (injection well), which melts the oil sands and allows it to drain into the lower production well (production well)
Saline
A mixture of salt and water. Saline, or brackish, water is not suitable for drinking, irrigation or other uses due to a high concentration of total dissolved solids.
Seismic line
A constructed trail used for seismographic exploration. Seismic exploration is the search for commercially economic subsurface deposits of crude oil, natural gas, and minerals by the recording, processing, and interpretation of artificially induced shock waves in the earth. Seismic waves reflect and refract off subsurface rock formations and travel back to acoustic receivers called geophones (on land) or hydrophones (in water). The travel times (measured in milliseconds) of the returned seismic energy, integrated with existing borehole well information, aid geoscientists in estimating the structure and stratigraphy (rock type, depositional environment, and fluid content) of subsurface formations, and facilitate the location of prospective drilling targets.
Slave River
The Slave River is a 415 km long river that flows from Lake Athabasca in northeastern Alberta and empties into Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories. It is used almost entirely as a transportation waterway and an important habitat for wildlife.
Slurry
A thin watery mixture of a fine insoluble (not dissolved) material.
solvent
A substance which is capable of dissolving another substance. Solvents are usually a liquid.
Solvent Co-injection
Solvent co-injection is similar to VAPEX, but does not completely eliminate steam. Instead, in situ reservoirs are injected with a combination of steam and solvent, typically butane. (Petro Canada website)
Steam-assisted gravity drainage
A method of producing heavy oil which involves two horizontal wellbores, one above the other; steam is injected into the upper wellbore and softened bitumen is recovered from the lower wellbore.
Sulphur
An abundant tasteless odorless multivalent nonmetallic element; best known in yellow crystals; occurs in many sulphide and sulphate minerals and even in native form.
Sulphur Dioxide (SO2)
A gas formed when sulphur-containing fuels such as oil and coal are burned, and then converted to an acid when exposed to water.
Sulphur dioxide (SOx)
A poisonous gas formed by burning hydrogen sulphide (or other sulphur compounds).
Supply and Demand
The economic principle that the price of a good or service seeks balance. When demand is greater than supply, prices will go up; conversely, when supply is greater than demand, prices will go down.
Surface Mining
Oil sands is minded using trucks and shovels. The oil sands is crushed and transported to an extraction plant where bitumen is separated from water and sand. Some facilities have the capability to upgrade the bitumen into a synthetic product û a light crude oil that can be processed by a refinery.
Surface water
Water collecting on the ground or in a stream, river, lake, wetland, or ocean is called surface water.
Syncrude Gateway Hill
In 2008, Syncrude was the first company in the oil sands industry to receive certification from the Alberta Government for a reclaimed area. Called Gateway Hill, the area was planted in the early 1980s and is now a healthy forest of broad leaf and needle leaf trees interspersed by several wetlands.
Synthetic crude oils
A mixture of hydrocarbons, similar to crude oil, derived by upgrading bitumen from oilsands.
Tailings pond
Tailings are a mixture of water, clay, sand and residual bitumen produced through the bitumen extraction process. Tailings are stored in large ponds û often built in discontinued mine pits û where the clay/water mixture is left to settle.
Toe to Heel Air Injection (THAI)
This method combines a vertical air injection well with a horizontal production well. The process ignites oil in the reservoir and creates a vertical wall of fire moving from the "toe" of the horizontal well toward the "heel", which burns the heavier oil components and drives the lighter components into the production well, where it is pumped out.
Town of Peace River
Peace River (population 6315) is located at the junction of the Peace and Smoky rivers in northern Alberta.
Truck and Shovel
An operation used to remove the upper layers of overburden.
Turbine
A rotary engine that converts the energy of a moving stream of water, steam or gas into mechanical energy. Turbines are classified as hydraulic (water) turbines, steam turbines or gas turbines. Turbine-power generators produce most of the world's electricity. Windmills that generate electicity are known as wind turbines.
Upgrade
Bitumen is a complex hydrocarbon made up of a long chain of molecules. In order for bitumen to be processed in refineries, this chain must be broken up and reorganized. Bitumen is carbon rich and hydrogen poor. Upgrading means removing some carbon while adding additional hydrogen. This is done using four main processes:
coking, distillation, catalytic conversions and hydrotreating. The end product is synthetic crude oil, which is shipped by underground pipelines to refineries across North America to be refined further into jet fuels, gasoline and other petroleum products.
Upgrader
A facility that upgrades bitumen into synthetic crude oil.
Vapour Recovery Extraction (Vapex)
A non-thermal recovery method that involves injecting vapourized solvents into heavy oil deposits. The solvent dissolves into the viscous (thick) oil making it mobile enough to drain downward to the production well.
Wastewater
Leftover water containing oil, sand and other debris.
Waterflood
A method of secondary oil recovery in which water is injected into the reservoir formation to displace residual (leftover) oil. The water from injection wells physically sweeps the displaced oil to adjacent production wells.
Well Pad
The placement of multiple wells drilled in series commonly covering an area up to 300 feet wide by 1000 feet long.
Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin
An area that includes Alberta and is the traditional source for most Canadian oil production.
Wetland
Wetlands encompass many different habitats including ponds, marshes, swamps, and peatlands. They are areas where land and water meet and are wet for an ecologically significant part of the year.
Williston Lake
Williston Lake, 1761 km2, is the largest freshwater body in British Columbia. Spruce forests around the lake supply pulp mills and sawmills at the district municipality of Mackenzie. The lake is used to transport timber to the mills.
Wood Buffalo National Park
Wood Buffalo National Park, located in northeastern Alberta and southern Northwest Territories, is the country's largest national park and one of the largest in the world. It was established in 1922 to protect the last remaining herds of bison in northern Canada. Today, it protects an outstanding and representative example of Canada's Northern Boreal Plains.