The Cold Lake oil sands are a large deposit of

oil sands Oil sands are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. They are either loose sands, or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with bitumen (a dense and extremely viscous ...

located near

Cold Lake, Alberta Cold Lake is a city in east-northern Alberta, Canada and is named after the lake nearby. Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake (CFB Cold Lake) is situated within the city's outer limits. History Cold Lake was first recorded on a 1790 map, by the nam ...

. Cold Lake is east of

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

's capital,

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

, near Alberta's border with

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, and a small portion of the Cold Lake field lies in Saskatchewan. In 1980, a plant in Cold Lake was one of just two oil sands plants under construction in Alberta.Although not developed as quickly and extensively as originally envisioned, an Imperial Oil plant in Cold Lake became the largest ''

in situ is a Latin phrase meaning 'in place' or 'on site', derived from ' ('in') and ' ( ablative of ''situs'', ). The term typically refers to the examination or occurrence of a process within its original context, without relocation. The term is use ...

'' oil sands project constructed in Alberta during the 1980s. By 1991, its daily oil production was 90,000 barrels. Some of the oil sands in the Cold Lake deposit have a low enough density that they can be extracted through drilling, as opposed to mining.

References

{{coord missing, Canada Bituminous sands of Canada Oil fields of Alberta Geology of Saskatchewan

See also

References