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Oil, natural gas and petroleum products accounted for more than 67% of Alberta’s exports in 2009.
Oil, natural gas and petroleum products accounted for 30.8% of Alberta’s provincial GDP in 2008.
In 2008, petroleum industry payments to the province, which amounted to $11.9 billion, accounted for 33.2% of provincial government revenues.
One in six Albertans is employed by the oil and gas industry. In 2008, Alberta’s per capita GDP was $50,986. This was 24.5% higher than the next closest province Ontario ($40,954). The national average was $39,249, with Prince Edward Island having the lowest per capita GDP with $29,633.
Discover the key energy facts about Alberta.
By the numbers (423KB PDF)
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Crude Oil
The oil sector has been a driver of the Alberta economy for almost 100 years. While the sector took off in 1947 with the Leduc discovery, the province’s first major oil field was discovered in Turner Valley in 1914.
In the 2008/2009 fiscal year, conventional crude oil production was the third-largest source of non-renewable resource revenue for Albertans.
In 2008, Alberta received $11.9 billion from the petroleum industry for the use of the province’s oil and gas resources.
In 2008, conventional crude oil production accounted for about 27% of Alberta's total crude oil and equivalent production, which is about 18.4% of Canada's total crude oil and equivalent production.
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Natural Gas
Alberta is home to a large natural gas resource base which accounted for 76% of the natural gas produced in Canada in 2008. Although natural gas is found throughout the province, concentrations are heavier in the mid- and southeast portions of Alberta.
Natural gas was discovered in Alberta in 1883, and by 1890, residents of Medicine Hat were using natural gas found beneath the town for cooking, heating and lighting.
Alberta produced an average of 12.4 1 billion cubic feet per day of marketed natural gas in 2008.
There were 101,073 conventional operated gas wells as of December 2008. When including coal derived natural gas, the number of gas wells rose to 107,363.
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Oil Sands
As of August 2009 there were 91 producing mining and in-situ oil sands projects in Alberta. In 2008 oil sands were the source of about 64% of Alberta’s total crude oil and equivalent production and about 44% of all crude oil and equivalent produced in Canada.
The oil sands have an area larger than Florida, twice the size of New Brunswick, are four and a half times the size of Vancouver Island, and 26 times larger than Prince Edward Island.
503,000 barrels of conventional and 1,204,115 barrels of oil sands mining and in-situ oil were produced in Alberta per day in 2008. In 2008, $37.8 billion in oil sands and conventional oil capital spending were invested in Alberta.
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Natural Gas Pipelines
In 2008, Alberta’s natural gas pipelines transported 4,218 billion cubic feet of marketable gas, or about 11.6 billion cubic feet per day.
TransCanada’s 100% owned natural gas transmission system in Alberta gathers natural gas for use within the province and delivers it to provincial boundary points for connection with the Canadian Mainline, BC System, the Foothills System and other pipelines. The 23,186 kilometre system is one of the largest carriers of natural gas in North America.
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Crude Oil Pipelines
In 2008, an average of 405,257 barrels per day or a total of 147.95 million barrels of crude oil and equivalent were delivered to Alberta refineries
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Refineries & Upgraders
The Imperial oil refinery is located in Strathcona County. In May 2006, the Strathcona refinery began producing ultra-low sulphur diesel, reducing its sulphur content by more than 97%. The refinery has approximately 430 employees and 250 contractors, and has a daily rated capacity of 187,000 barrels of crude oil.
Shell Canada’s Scotford Refinery is the first refinery to exclusively process synthetic crude from Alberta’s oilsands. The refinery has more than 750 full-time staff and long term contractors, and a capacity of 100,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil daily.
Suncor’s Edmonton refinery has a capacity of 135,000 barrels per day and produces a high yield of light oils exclusively from oil sands-based feedstocks.
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Hydroelectricity
Alberta currently has 900 megawatts of installed hydroelectricity generating capacity.
Alberta currently has 21 hydro facilities in operation. Ontario leads the country with 190.
The Brazeau facility, operated by TransAlta is the largest in the province providing 39% (355 megawatts) of all Alberta’s hydroelectricity.
TransAlta, through its wholly owned subsidiaries, Canadian Hydro Developers and Glacier Power, proposed 100-megawatt Dunvegan Hydro Project near Fairview, Alberta. The project is a low-head, run-of-the-river hydroelectric generating facility which, when completed, will provide enough electricity for more than 80,000 homes. In May 2009, TransAlta received approval from the Natural Resources Conservation Board and the Alberta Utilities Commission to construct and operate the facility.
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Coal
Alberta's coal resources contain more than twice the energy of all of the province's other non-renewable energy resources, including conventional oil and pentanes, natural gas, natural gas liquids, and bitumen and synthetic crude.
Technologies, such as coal gasification, coal liquefaction, carbon dioxide storage and sequestration, have the potential to allow Alberta to utilize its coal with near-zero, possibly even zero, emissions into the atmosphere.
The Government of Alberta is investing $2 billion to encourage construction of the province’s first large-scale carbon capture and storage projects to reduce emissions at facilities such as coal-fired electricity plants and oilsands extraction sites and upgraders.
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Wind
There are 24 wind farms in Alberta. With 653 megawatts of installed capacity, enough to supply more than 520,000 homes with electricity for a year, Alberta has Canada's third largest wind power capacity behind Ontario and Quebec.
The largest wind farm is located in Taber and has an installed capacity of 81.4 megawatts.
The province of Alberta also has one new wind project under construction, the nine-megawatt Prairie Home Phase One, due to be completed in October 2010.
According to Alberta Electricity Systems Operator,, another nine wind projects with combined installed capacity of 1,112 megawatts have been proposed.
Since 2001 Calgary Transit in partnership with ENMAX and Vision Quest Windelectric Inc. has used wind-generated electricity to power the CTrain light rail system. Twelve wind turbines generate the wind power reducing CO2 emissions by 46,000 tonnes annually.
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Thermal Electricity Generation
Alberta currently has 5,692 megawatts of coal plant electricity generating capacity. Alberta has the most cost coal fired thermal generation facilities in the country with nine, the largest of which is the Sundance (Wabamun) facility with 2,126 megawatts capacity.
The province also has 5,189 megawatts of natural gas fired electricity capacity. Of the 58 plants, the largest, with 480 megawatts installed capacity, is the Joffre plant at Red Deer.
Almost all of Alberta’s 193 megawatts of biomass-fired electricity capacity is fuelled by wood waste from the province’s forestry industry.
Thermal electricity facilities can generate power several different ways, including natural gas (represented by circles on the map), oil/diesel generation (squares), coal (triangles) and biomass (diamonds).
