Specifications - Athabasca Sands, Canada

Key Data
Producer of	Synthetic crude oil
Location	The mineable area extends to some 3,400km² (1,300 square miles) north of Fort McMurray, in northern Alberta.
Geology type	Oil sands comprising a mixture of 83% silica sand, 10% crude bitumen, 4% water, 3% clay
Mineral type	Crude bitumen
Reserve base
Proven	176 billion barrels (174 billion bbls crude bitumen, 1.6 billion bbls crude oil)
Total recoverable	335 billion barrels (315 billion bbls crude bitumen, 19.7 billion bbls crude oil)
Production	760,000bbls/day (2005); 3 billion bbls/day (2015 prediction)
Processing	Open pit mining/Clark extraction; SAGD, CSS, VAPEX & THAI in-situ methods
Main operators	Three large oil sands mining operations Syncrude, Suncor Energy and Albian Sands (Shell Canada, Chevron, and Western Oil Sands JVC).