Brief Description of Oil Sands Areas

摘要

As the foregoing discussions suggest, each oil sands area is unique in terms of its specific strati-graphic and structural character, original deposi-tional settings, resulting lithofacies and distribution of bitumen saturation. This strongly suggests that different recovery methods may be appropriate to each area, or that similar techniques may need to be adapted in each case to different types of reservoirs. The total oil sands area accessible to surface mining (overburden < 75 m) includes 37 townships immediately north of Fort McMurray (Fig. 4.23). This leaves the great majority of the Athabasca Oil Sands Area and all of the Peace River and Cold Lake areas to be developed by in situ methods. The heterogeneity of the McMurray, Clearwater and Bluesky reservoirs across this large region will likely prove a challenge to optimal recovery for some time. Continued geologic and geophysical study, on both a local and regional basis, will be necessary to help identify, test, fine-tune and implement techniques over time.