Canada's Technological Capability to Meet'its Future Energy Requirements

Abstract

Abstract Introduction It is well recognized that the pattern of supply of Canada's energy requirements will change in the future. Some people refer to a crisis developing in the 1980's, while even those of a more optimistic view see a need for a conscious and early effort to develop new supplies and alternatives to our heavy demand for crude oil. Conservation at the point of energy use is widely supported as a concept and will, I hope, be further practised in the years ahead. However, more important in the long run is adding to our developed supply of energy. This means continuing the search for conventional hydrocarbons both in established producing areas and on the frontiers, increasing our efforts to improve recovery of known hydrocarbon resources and accelerating the development of alternatives- especially to crude oil. Canada is the most fortunate country in the world in terms of the energy alternatives which are open to it- However, we must soon make our choices and develop the supplies we will need. An important question is whether we have the necessary technological capability to do so. Energy Sources For the Future First, what choices do we have and which ones or combinations should we, or are we likely to, select? I accept that we will, and of course we must, continue our efforts to discover and develop new supplies of conventional crude oil and gas in the Western Basin, the Beaufort Sea the Arctic Islands, the Davis Strait and off our eastern shores. So far, only the Western Basin has yielded substantial reserves of both oil and gas; the Beaufort Sea and the Arctic Islands show promise of becoming commercially viable sources of gas (perhaps of oil too), but the development problems are enormous. The Davis Strait and the eastern shelves are of great geological interest, but significant commercial- discoveries have yet to be made and, if they are, the problems of production will still have to be faced. Another choice which we must select is to develop methods to increase the recovery of light and medium crude oil from our known fields. At our average recovery level of about 33 per cent, Canada has over 28 billion barrels of known light and medium crude oil which will not be recovered by present producing methods. There are good prospects that 2 or more billion barrels of this could be recovered by applying advanced enhanced recovery methods. In the case of heavy crude oil, present production methods recover only about 10 per cent of the oil in place and the proved deposits contain over 6 billion barrels of oil which will not be recovered by these methods. More sophisticated production techniques are being tested and show promise of increasing the recovery by up to a billion barrels. In its natural state, however, heavy oil is suitable only for production of asphalt and heavy fuel oil with a modest yield of middle distillate.