Hazards and Maps

Hazards and Maps

In the world crude and natural gas market, Canada has been ranked as the 5^th largest producer of natural gas and the 6^th largest producer of crude oil. Further, a study shows that Canada has more than 168 billion barrels, whereby, over 95 percent can be recovered using the improved technology (Giesy et al., 2010). Using today’s technology to extract crude oil from sand oils makes Canada have the third largest country with vast oil reserves that are yet to be obtained. The demand for crude oil, natural gas, and oil products is rising rapidly. Countries such as the United States and the Asia Pacific region have increased their demand for crude oil and natural gas from Canada. Therefore, Canada has to put in all efforts to ensure it satisfies the needs and rising desires of her customers. Export of crude oil and natural gas products er]ans the country foreign exchange, which is used to boost other sectors of the economy. The increase in export earnings over the last few years has promoted rapid economic and infrastructural development. Therefore, the Canadian government is finding all possible ways of using the current technology to extract more crude oil. Currently, a plan of developing eight more pipeline projects that will transport oil to the market has been proposed, and its implementation will commence soon. In total, about Can $25 billion have been set aside to implement these eight projects, which will change Canada’s phase of producing oil.

Hodgson & Baker (2009) outlines, “The proposed projects are classified into three major categories based on the geographical location of the pipelines. The first category covers Enbridge Gateway, Terasen, and Pembina, which shall transport oil products between Alberta and British Columbia. The second category consists of Keystone, Altex, Enbridge Clipper, and Enbridge 2, which is designed to transport oil between Alberta and the United States using overland pipeline routes that do not require oil ports or oil tankers. Lastly, the third category includes only one project (Mackenzie Valley), involving the construction of a pipeline from the Northwest Territories to northern Alberta along the Mackenzie Valley, and development of gas fields in the Northwest Territories.”

To fully understand oil production and transportation from the production site to the market, it is essential to note that various geographical factors influence how the whole process is performed. Some of the conventional geophysical disciplines affecting the full operation of oil production and transportation include scale, maps, landscape, hazards, and nature. While designing oil transportation paths or determining which technology should be used to extract oil, all these factors must be put into consideration. Oil reserves in Canada lie in different regions, which may experience varied climatic conditions, landscape, or prone to specific hazards; therefore, it is the role of the government or the body in charge to ensure that better strategies are implemented to increase oil production. This paper provides deeper knowledge of how hazards and landscape influence oil production and transportation from the production site to the market.

Hazards

To begin with, oil sand, which is majorly mined in Venezuela and Canada, in Alberta consists of various components such as water, heavy oil, sand, and other valuable minerals (Camp, 1974). Often, these sand deposits cannot be extracted using standard mining methods such as natural flow. Instead, advanced and sophisticated technologies are required to tap crude oil from the sand. However, depending on the sand deposit and how the crude oil lies within the sand deposits, two extraction methods may be adopted. Engineers may decide to use surface mining of the sand oil is shallow, or they may choose to use situ drilling if the oil deposits lie deep. According to Cutter (1996), environmental hazards generally imply potential losses. Hazards enclose all vulnerabilities that the environment where oil extraction is taking place, and the people working in the oil fields are exposed to. As already stated previously, Canada’s crude oil is majorly extracted from the sand using current technology. Most oil reserves in Canada lie in sand deposits, natural forested areas, and the extraction methods require large volumes of freshwater, this makes oil extraction difficult without affecting the environment negatively. In this section, we are going to handle the environmental impacts caused by oil extraction and how the society or workers within the oil fields are affected by oil extraction.

Environmental hazards

Chalaturnyk et al. (2002) outline that, if the oil sand deposits lie deep and engineers choose to use situ drilling to obtain oil, there are numerous environmental hazards accompanied by the use of that method of extraction. Although situ drilling uses the latest technology and facilitates oil extraction lying deep in the surface of the other, Chalaturnyk states that the process requires high volumes of freshwater, as the extracted bitumen is converted to crude oil before it is transported to the refineries. Also, high temperatures are expected during oil extraction to reduce the crude oil’s viscosity for easy retrieval from the earth’s surface.

During oil transportation, several hazards involving pipelines, ports, and tankers have been reported. The dangers caused by leakages of the pipeline and trucks have both short-term and long-term consequences. To begin with, during pipeline construction, groundwater, air, wildlife, vegetation, and soil surface are distorted. Also, increased oil spills during transportation such as the common oil spillages that occurred between 1992 and 2002, whereby over 30,000 oil barrels spilled over the sea, led to the loss of indigenous fish species, and contaminating the sea. Such environmental hazards limit the production and transportation of oil in Canada

Socioeconomic impacts

People from different parts of Canada have relocated to Alberta to find employment opportunities in the oil fields. Their living standard has dramatically changed due to the availability of enough finance to sustain their needs. Therefore, apart from environmental hazards, oil extraction has an impact on the socio-economic life of the people working in the oil fields. Although innovation in technology has eased oil extraction from deeper sand deposits, human labor is still required. Social control how the machines used during oil extraction operate, and sometimes the tools fail during the extraction process, and the laborer may suffer significantly; some even die in the minefields. When the laborer is injured or dies during the mining process, his or her family suffers from financial instability as their breadwinner is no longer available. Schneider & Dyer (2006) states, “when such tragedies occur in mining centers, workers begin to work with fear, thus leading to a low production rate.”

Forest loss

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA) has specific strategies and objectives of ensuring that the environment and natural resources such as forests are preserved. Therefore despite the presence of mineral oils in a given place within Canada, the study must be carried out to determine if the site is fit for mining to take place and what consequences might mining cause to the environment. Research shows that areas covered by oil sand deposits in Canada where exploration and extraction have already commenced have less than 2% of forest cover. During oil extraction, for machines to perform the mining process, the surface must be clear, that is, vegetation and trees should be cleared to give space for efficient oil extraction. Also, vegetation needs to be removed to allow construction of roads, and pipelines from the oil extraction centers to places where oil refinement is done. In general, forest loss within the oil extraction area is likely to lead to desertification if an immediate initiative is not taken. Forest loss brings several damages to the land, such as loss of water attachment areas, loss of green nature of the environment, loss of indigenous trees, and loss of habitat for wildlife. To preserve the environment, forested areas, which are oil fields, are reallocated to allow oil extraction to take place.

Maps

Oil reserves, just like all other natural resources, are unevenly distributed in Canada. There are some parts of the country with vast oil reserves where the crude oil or natural gas can be extracted. Also, there are some parts of Canada with no oil reserves at all. In regions where they are no oil reserves, people engage themselves in other economic activities such as agriculture and industry to generate their daily income (Meneley, 1986). Croft production system defines oil as a “fossil fuel that has been formed from a large number of tiny plants and animals such as algae and zooplankton. These organisms fall to the bottom of the sea once they die and over time, get trapped under multiple layers of sand and mud. Due to the pressure of the overlying layers, the fossils decompose, and the heat makes them meltdown to form oil.” It takes decades for fossils to decompose completely and meltdown to form oil. Therefore, it is worth mentioning that oil fields are natural reserves.

Regions where oil reserves lie

Sand oil is the most common type of oil extracted in Canada. The formation of sand oil remains undisputed to most people, and geologists believe that sand oil is formed the same way other fossil oils are composed. Many regions in Canada are covered by oil reserves; this makes Canada to be uniquely positioned to provide reliable, secure, and safe energy that is abundant. Most countries neighboring Canada but lack oil fields usually import oil from Canada; therefore, this makes Canada grow economically due to exports from crude oil exports. The most common extracted products from different parts of Canada include oil sands, natural gas, conventional, and unconventional oil (Chew, 2014). There are more than 4 billion barrels of oil that have not yet been extracted in Canada. The Common areas where there are vast fields of oil reserves in Canada include Alberta, Saskatchewan, Offshore Newfoundland, and Labrador. However, depending on the geological location of the oil reserve, different extraction methods are used to acquire oil from the reserves.

In Canada, before oil extraction takes place, a TEMPOL, which is a joint review process administered by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, carries an assessment to determine the safety and strategies put in place to ensure the environment is safe. Also, the department determines the paths through which pipelines and tankers will use to transport crude oil from extraction sites to refineries. The Transport Canada Marine Safety also works in hand with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to provide operational safety, and proper Management to tankers transporting crude oil to refinery centers.

Cartography

According to Harley(1989), geologists need to interpret the nature of cartography. Through Cartography, an individual can trace the origin of something. Also, it makes it possible for one to identify the correct region where a particular resource is available. Petroleum engineers ad geologists who are responsible for crude mining oil must understand the exact points where oil reserves are. Without using the knowledge on cartography, they may spend many years in the field, waste a lot of resources in the mining, but in the end, fail to extract oil. Although innovation in technology has made it simpler for the people working in oil fields, they need to have more information on the correct map of the region before beginning extraction. Canada contains diverse, reliable renewable and non-renewable energy resources that are located in different parts of the country. The non-renewable sources of energy in Canada include natural gas, hydroelectricity, uranium, and oil, while renewable sources majorly include hydropower.

After the crude oil and natural gas have been extracted from the oil fields of Canada, about 30% of the total production is refined and consumed locally while the rest is exported to other countries such as the United States and Mexico. These two countries import more than 2000 barrels of crude oil each day from Canada, thus leading to a rise in demand for oil in the international market.

Canada and the United States are each other’s largest trading partners in energy (Marquez, 1999). The trading relationship between these two states has improved significantly due to the rise in demand for oil and oil products in the United States and the increased use of technology in oil extraction in Canada, which increases the oil production level. The oil trading has contributed to finding new security strategies to ensure oil on transit reaches the intended place safely. Also, Canada is adopting new oil extraction technologies to help in maximizing production output. Canada exports 68% crude oil, 10% natural gas, 3% electricity, 1% coal, 1% uranium, and 17% petroleum refined products to the United States. On the other hand, United States exports 47% refined petroleum products, 33% crude oil, 13% natural gas, 1% electricity, 3% fuel ethanol, and 3% of coal to Canada. Therefore, the trade between these two countries has promoted all production in Canada.