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105-525: The Pembina Institute was formed following the 1981 Lodgepole sour gas accident in Alberta , which killed two people and polluted the air for weeks. A small group of rural Albertans came together to secure tougher regulations for drilling sour gas wells, and later went on to form the Pembina Institute. The Pembina Institute advocates policies that reduce the use of fossil fuels , and supports

210-644: A 280-kilometre pipeline connecting the Bow Island field to Lethbridge and Calgary in 86 days. It augmented the Dingman enterprise in Calgary, which was unable to supply the growing demands of the city. By 1913, several other towns in southern Alberta boasted natural gas service from the Canadian Western system. Coste's pioneering enterprise provided fuel to nearly 7,000 customers. Sour gas , as it

315-520: A fluid resembling petroleum, which when treated in the same way as the seep oil gave similar products. Young found that by slow distillation he could obtain several useful liquids from it, one of which he named "paraffine oil" because at low temperatures it congealed into a substance resembling paraffin wax. The production of these oils and solid paraffin wax from coal formed the subject of his patent dated October 17, 1850. In 1850, Young & Meldrum and Edward William Binney entered into partnership under

420-420: A fraction of the cost of large nuclear, hydro-electric or coal-powered facilities. Although their share of the market would shrink if gas prices rose, these ingenious projects filled an important market niche during the long period of gas surplus. The demand for larger supplies of natural gas to meet expanding markets created a need for more gas processing facilities. Industry responded by developing new fields in

525-579: A growth industry. As coal , hydroelectric and nuclear-powered generation facilities came under attack for environmental reasons, gas stepped in and sold itself as a clean alternative. Businesses arranged for pipelines to transport natural gas for them, found markets for electricity, and even created " cogeneration plants" to sell the heat created by gas-fired generators to other markets. As long as natural gas supplies exceeded demand, these facilities remained attractive. They used an inexpensive and environmentally friendly fuel. They met immediate needs at only

630-512: A much shallower level. The Athabasca oil sands are one example of this. An alternative mechanism to the one described above was proposed by Russian scientists in the mid-1850s, the hypothesis of abiogenic petroleum origin (petroleum formed by inorganic means), but this is contradicted by geological and geochemical evidence. Abiogenic sources of oil have been found, but never in commercially profitable amounts. "The controversy isn't over whether abiogenic oil reserves exist," said Larry Nation of

735-432: A new standard for community participation and consultation. Two companies, Shell and Husky , competed for the right to operate the field. The public hearing into the development forced the corporations to compete for the right to develop the resource on new terms. Farmers, acreage owners and other interested parties quickly made their concerns known. The competing corporations were required to respond to these concerns, so

840-536: A number of ways. For example, although it generally required dehydration , sweetening and processing for liquid hydrocarbons, companies transported the natural gas from northeastern British Columbia long distances before processing it further. Consequently, while planning the Westcoast pipeline, the field operators agreed to process all the gas at a single facility, rather than have individual gas plants in every major production area. At 10 million cubic metres per day,

945-477: A point for commercial sale and consumption. Through the use of evolving technology, the gas processing industry of each era extracts higher percentages of a wider range of hydrocarbons and other commercial by-products than its predecessors. It also removes ever-higher percentages of dangerous and other unwanted impurities. Steady growth has made natural gas a major industry, with 180 cubic kilometres of gas flowing from Canadian fields to market, every year. Part of

1050-476: A process known as catagenesis . Formation of petroleum occurs from hydrocarbon pyrolysis in a variety of mainly endothermic reactions at high temperatures or pressures, or both. These phases are described in detail below. In the absence of plentiful oxygen, aerobic bacteria were prevented from decaying the organic matter after it was buried under a layer of sediment or water. However, anaerobic bacteria were able to reduce sulfates and nitrates among

1155-432: A program was the sour gas discovery at the village of Caroline, Alberta in south-central Alberta, in the mid-1980s. This discovery brought the industry into a new era. Because of the costs and dangers involved in developing sour gas, producers in the past had often shut in these discoveries. In the case of Caroline, this was unthinkable. As the biggest Canadian gas discovery since the 1970s and its richest gas project ever,

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1260-661: A report commissioned by Alberta's Energy Resources Conservation Board , these and other direct costs totalled about $ 200 million. The incident spawned a generation of safety regulations that require the industry to designate hazardous drilling targets as "critical wells" and to use elaborate safety precautions at the drill site. The new regulations imposed much more stringent drilling procedures at critical wells, required specialized safety features on drilling and other equipment, and forced companies to develop detailed emergency response plans before beginning to drill. Combined, these additional costs can range from $ 250,000 to $ 500,000 for

1365-571: A series on Canada's petroleum industry , this entry focuses on the second of these two functions of gas processing - removing impurities from the gas stream - rather than recovering natural gas liquids , described elsewhere . Of course, most large plants perform both functions, and plants have no other ultimate purpose than to quickly, safely and profitably turn raw gas into products to be safely shipped (mostly by pipeline) to market. The discussion covers gas processing as an engineering feat, critical developments in exploration and development and

1470-665: A significant amount of petroleum while drilling for lignite in Wietze , Germany. Wietze later provided about 80% of German consumption in the Wilhelminian Era. The production stopped in 1963, but Wietze has hosted a Petroleum Museum since 1970. Oil sands have been mined since the 18th century. In Wietze in lower Saxony, natural asphalt/bitumen has been explored since the 18th century. Both in Pechelbronn as in Wietze,

1575-415: A single deep sour gas well. Thus, the indirect costs of the blowout have probably been on the order of $ 1 billion. Later in the decade, many large companies began reviewing their existing land holdings, looking for discoveries that had eluded earlier exploration. This was partly a money-saving idea - necessary because both gas and oil prices were in decline throughout much of the decade. One find from such

1680-574: A source of internal and inter-state conflict, leading to both state-led wars and other resource conflicts . Production of petroleum is estimated to reach peak oil before 2035 as global economies lower dependencies on petroleum as part of climate change mitigation and a transition towards renewable energy and electrification . The word petroleum comes from Medieval Latin petroleum (literally 'rock oil'), which comes from Latin petra 'rock' (from Greek pétra πέτρα ) and oleum 'oil' (from Greek élaion ἔλαιον ). The origin of

1785-411: A variety of liquid, gaseous, and solid components. Lighter hydrocarbons are the gases methane , ethane , propane and butane . Otherwise, the bulk of the liquid and solids are largely heavier organic compounds, often hydrocarbons (C and H only). The proportion of light hydrocarbons in the petroleum mixture varies among oil fields . An oil well produces predominantly crude oil. Because the pressure

1890-564: A view to drilling deeper for gas. The resulting enterprise led to the development of the Medicine Hat gas field in 1904. The community took advantage of the natural resource and became the first town or city in western Canada with a gas utility. Natural gas service began in Calgary somewhat later, when A.W. Dingman formed the Calgary Natural Gas Company. He drilled a successful well in east Calgary, laid pipe to

1995-526: A visit to Fort Duquesne in 1750. Early British explorers to Myanmar documented a flourishing oil extraction industry based in Yenangyaung that, in 1795, had hundreds of hand-dug wells under production. Merkwiller-Pechelbronn is said to be the first European site where petroleum has been explored and used. The still active Erdpechquelle, a spring where petroleum appears mixed with water has been used since 1498, notably for medical purposes. There

2100-554: A year before Drake's Pennsylvania operation and could be argued to be the first commercial oil well in North America. The discovery at Oil Springs touched off an oil boom which brought hundreds of speculators and workers to the area. Advances in drilling continued into 1862 when local driller Shaw reached a depth of 62 metres using the spring-pole drilling method. On January 16, 1862, after an explosion of natural gas , Canada's first oil gusher came into production, shooting into

2205-598: A year later in Turner Valley , and used the same process. The first gas found at Turner Valley had been sweet but the Royalite #4 discovery of 1924, from a deeper horizon, was sour. Royalite built the Turner Valley sweetening plant in order to sell its gas to Canadian Western Natural Gas for distribution. The technology of the day did not render the hydrogen sulphide harmless. Instead, the producer disposed of

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2310-418: A year, production from the new fields rose to more than 700 million cubic feet (20,000,000 m ) per day - and this from an area only accessible during the cold winter months. In any given area, free-flowing, buoyancy-driven natural gas represents a very small fraction of the natural gas resources present. Unconventional gas represents possibly hundreds of times more natural gas resource than there

2415-484: Is a dangerous substance which at low concentrations has an obnoxious rotten egg smell. This odour annoyed Union's customers and prompted it to build the Port Alma plant. It removed hydrogen sulphide by exposing the sour gas to dissolved soda ash. Although previously used on coal gas, the application at the Port Alma plant was the first time this process sweetened natural gas. The second Canadian sweetening plant followed

2520-512: Is also a supporting member of the Strathmere group, an assembly of the heads of eleven of Canada's leading environmental organizations. The institute's educational initiatives were moved to an independent organization, Green Learning Canada, in 2011. In 2012, Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development denied the institute standing to express concerns about an in situ oilsands project near Fort McMurray , Alberta. The decision

2625-491: Is called diagenesis , a word that means a transformation of materials by dissolution and recombination of their constituents. Kerogen formation continued to a depth of about 1 km from the Earth's surface where temperatures may reach around 50 °C . Kerogen formation represents a halfway point between organic matter and fossil fuels : kerogen can be exposed to oxygen, oxidize and thus be lost, or it could be buried deeper inside

2730-726: Is considered a sticky, black, tar-like form of crude oil which is so thick and heavy that it must be heated or diluted before it will flow. Venezuela also has large amounts of oil in the Orinoco oil sands , although the hydrocarbons trapped in them are more fluid than in Canada and are usually called extra heavy oil . These oil sands resources are called unconventional oil to distinguish them from oil which can be extracted using traditional oil well methods. Between them, Canada and Venezuela contain an estimated 3.6 trillion barrels (570 × 10 ^  m ) of bitumen and extra-heavy oil, about twice

2835-738: Is done after a study of the relevant structural geology , analysis of the sedimentary basin , and characterization of the petroleum reservoir . There are also unconventional reserves such as oil sands and oil shale which are recovered by other means such as fracking . Once extracted, oil is refined and separated, most easily by distillation , into innumerable products for direct use or use in manufacturing. Products include fuels such as gasoline (petrol), diesel , kerosene and jet fuel ; asphalt and lubricants ; chemical reagents used to make plastics ; solvents , textiles , refrigerants , paint , synthetic rubber , fertilizers , pesticides , pharmaceuticals , and thousands of others. Petroleum

2940-465: Is for conventional gas. It comes from five major sources: Crude oil Petroleum is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture. It consists mainly of hydrocarbons , and is found in geological formations . The term petroleum refers both to naturally occurring unprocessed crude oil, as well as to petroleum products that consist of refined crude oil. Conventional reserves of petroleum are primarily recovered by drilling , which

3045-568: Is known, in its natural state is laced with hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S), which can be lethal if inhaled in even tiny concentrations. (The more general term acid gas refers to natural gas with any acidic gas in it - carbon dioxide (CO 2 ), for example.) The process of taking hydrogen sulphide out of a gas stream is called "sweetening" the gas. The Union Natural Gas Company of Canada (now Union Gas Ltd. ) of Chatham-Kent, Ontario built Canada's first Koppers process sweetening plant in 1924 at Port Alma, Ontario, to scrub Tillbury gas. Hydrogen sulphide

3150-473: Is lower at the surface than underground, some of the gas will come out of solution and be recovered (or burned) as associated gas or solution gas . A gas well produces predominantly natural gas . However, because the underground temperature is higher than at the surface, the gas may contain heavier hydrocarbons such as pentane, hexane , and heptane (" natural-gas condensate ", often shortened to condensate. ) Condensate resembles gasoline in appearance and

3255-756: Is now called the Drake Well in Cherrytree Township, Pennsylvania .There also was a company associated with it, and it sparked a major oil drilling boom. The first commercial oil well in Canada became operational in 1858 at Oil Springs, Ontario (then Canada West ). Businessman James Miller Williams dug several wells between 1855 and 1858 before discovering a rich reserve of oil four metres below ground. Williams extracted 1.5 million litres of crude oil by 1860, refining much of it into kerosene lamp oil. Williams's well became commercially viable

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3360-451: Is similar in composition to some volatile light crude oils . The hydrocarbons in crude oil are mostly alkanes , cycloalkanes and various aromatic hydrocarbons , while the other organic compounds contain nitrogen , oxygen , and sulfur , and traces of metals such as iron, nickel, copper and vanadium . Many oil reservoirs contain live bacteria. The exact molecular composition of crude oil varies widely from formation to formation but

3465-414: Is today, it is hard to imagine the challenges the industry faced as it grew up. Gas processing developed as an adjunct to the construction of the major gas transmission pipeline system , which began operating in the late 1950s. During the 1980s and 1990s the natural gas industry faced a new series of problems. As demand for gas grew, suppliers expanded their capacity and soon a "gas bubble" developed. There

3570-473: Is used in manufacturing a vast variety of materials essential for modern life, and it is estimated that the world consumes about 100 million barrels (16 million cubic metres ) each day. Petroleum production played a key role in industrialization and economic development. Some countries, known as petrostates , gained significant economic and international power over their control of oil production and trade. Petroleum exploitation can be damaging to

3675-674: The Earth's crust and be subjected to conditions which allow it to slowly transform into fossil fuels like petroleum. The latter happened through catagenesis in which the reactions were mostly radical rearrangements of kerogen. These reactions took thousands to millions of years and no external reactants were involved. Due to the radical nature of these reactions, kerogen reacted towards two classes of products: those with low H/C ratio ( anthracene or products similar to it) and those with high H/C ratio ( methane or products similar to it); i.e., carbon-rich or hydrogen-rich products. Because catagenesis

3780-674: The Greater Toronto Area . They have supported the carbon tax in British Columbia and in Alberta, and called for stronger climate action from the Canadian federal government, including action on reducing methane emissions . They have analyzed the impact of freight emissions on Paris Accord targets, stating that the targets will not be met if freight transportation is not made more efficient. The institute set up

3885-621: The Leduc discovery, the Conservation Board acted to prevent any repetition of the natural gas waste so common in Turner Valley. The board developed a broad conservation policy for natural gas. It prohibited producing natural gas from an oil reservoir 's gas cap before the oil was fully produced, and included provisions aimed at conserving the natural gas often produced along with the oil. For this reason, these plants became known as "gas conservation plants." The first of these new plants

3990-490: The Orinoco Belt . While significant volumes of oil are extracted from oil sands, particularly in Canada, logistical and technical hurdles remain, as oil extraction requires large amounts of heat and water, making its net energy content quite low relative to conventional crude oil. Thus, Canada's oil sands are not expected to provide more than a few million barrels per day in the foreseeable future. Petroleum consists of

4095-808: The Soviet Union in total output. In 1973 , Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations imposed an oil embargo against the United States, United Kingdom, Japan and other Western nations which supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. The embargo caused an oil crisis . This was followed by the 1979 oil crisis , which was caused by a drop in oil production in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and caused oil prices to more than double. The two oil price shocks had many short- and long-term effects on global politics and

4200-540: The United States , but is responsible for only one percent of electricity generation. Petroleum's worth as a portable, dense energy source powering the vast majority of vehicles and as the base of many industrial chemicals makes it one of the world's most important commodities . The top three oil-producing countries as of 2018 are the United States, Russia , and Saudi Arabia . In 2018, due in part to developments in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling ,

4305-455: The actinomycetales order of bacteria also produced antibiotic compounds (e.g., streptomycin ). Thus the action of anaerobic bacteria ceased at about 10 m below the water or sediment. The mixture at this depth contained fulvic acids, unreacted and partially reacted fats and waxes, slightly modified lignin , resins and other hydrocarbons. As more layers of organic matter settled into the sea or lake bed, intense heat and pressure built up in

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4410-462: The costs of pipeline building make the whole enterprise capital intensive , requiring both money and engineering expertise , and large enough markets to make the business profitable . Until it became commercially viable, natural gas was often a nuisance. Dangerous to handle and hard to get to market, early oilmen despised it as a poor relation to its rich cousin crude oil . Although early processing procedures were able to remove water, in

4515-571: The fundamentals of the marketplace . A small natural gas industry in Central Canada had already been around for several decades, but the most significant event in the industry's early history was probably the drilling of a well near Medicine Hat in 1890, in search of coal for the railway . The well encountered a large flow of natural gas, and this prompted town officials to approach the Canadian Pacific Railway with

4620-515: The "Business Renewables Centre - Canada" in 2018, with a mandate as "an education platform and community where organizations can learn how to buy their electricity from renewable sources." The Pembina Institute was also involved in the "Renewable is Doable" initiative with WWF-Canada to replace coal and nuclear power with clean energy sources. The institute is a member of the Alberta Energy Efficiency Alliance. It

4725-585: The 12th century. It has also been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură. Sophisticated oil pits, 4.5 to 6 metres (15 to 20 ft) deep, were dug by the Seneca people and other Iroquois in Western Pennsylvania as early as 1415–1450. The French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm encountered Seneca using petroleum for ceremonial fires and as a healing lotion during

4830-457: The 1980s and natural gas supplies remained abundant, so consumers began taking advantage of the twin surpluses. Individuals, corporations and governments alike window-shopped for the cheapest crude oil and natural gas available, and demand grew. In the mid-1980s, conservative governments in Washington, D.C. , Ottawa and Edmonton moved their petroleum sectors towards deregulation. Throwing

4935-452: The 19th century discoveries were only developed if consumers could use the gas just as it came out of the ground. If the gas required further processing or needed to be piped a long distance to market, the producer shut in the well. Flares got rid of gas coming from oil wells . Natural gas processing changes the commodity in two critical ways. First, it extracts valuable by-products; second, it renders natural gas fit to be transported to

5040-443: The Alberta countryside. These inventories grew almost every year after 1952, and government and industry became seriously concerned about the surplus. Beginning in 1978, a strong sulphur marketing effort made Canada the largest supplier to international trade. Sales of sulphur generally exceeded production and stockpiles at gas plants began to shrink. Looking at the large, sophisticated, high-tech enterprise that Canadian gas processing

5145-850: The Alberta government in 1960 forced the industry to reduce its emissions of such sulphur compounds as sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. Over the years, sour gas processing technology steadily improved. By 1970, more stringent emission standards were technically feasible. The Alberta government announced new, tougher regulations in 1971. Improvements in sulphur extraction technology and the addition of tail gas clean-up units enabled processors to meet these stricter standards. The amount of sulphur produced in Alberta increased rapidly, and soon far outstripped demand. By 1963, Alberta's annual sulphur production exceeded one million tonnes, compared with 30,000 tonnes in 1956. In 1973 it peaked at slightly more than 7 million tonnes. Stockpiles grew annually. By 1978, 21 million tonnes of sulphur in large yellow blocks dotted

5250-503: The American Association of Petroleum Geologists. "The controversy is over how much they contribute to Earth's overall reserves and how much time and effort geologists should devote to seeking them out." Three conditions must be present for oil reservoirs to form: The reactions that produce oil and natural gas are often modeled as first order breakdown reactions, where hydrocarbons are broken down to oil and natural gas by

5355-629: The Arctic region. In early 2000, as Murphy Oil , Apache (now APA Corporation ), and Beau Canada announced their discovery of the Ladyfern Slave Point gas field in a remote area of Northeastern British Columbia, their achievement seemed to herald a new era of successful wildcat exploration. As word of a major discovery leaked out, many of the significant players in the industry jumped on the bandwagon. A frenzy of land purchases, drilling and pipeline construction followed. In little more than

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5460-523: The Calgary Brewing and Malting Company site and began providing gas to the brewery on April 10, 1910. As in Medicine Hat, gas mains soon provided domestic fuel and street lighting. In a parallel development Eugene Coste , who had been a pioneer in the development of Ontario's natural gas industry, moved west. He drilled the locally famous Old Glory gas well near Bow Island, Alberta , in 1909. In 1912, his Canadian Western Natural Gas Company built

5565-497: The Caroline experience made public consultation an integral part of planning. Sustainable development theories came under close scrutiny, as did all aspects of the gas processing system. When they recognized that public consultation had become critical to the winning bid, the companies raised community relations to a new level. Eventually, Shell and its backers won the bid. They constructed a processing plant that recovered almost all

5670-455: The Earth's surface. Unusual magma intrusions, however, could have created greater localized heating. Geologists often refer to the temperature range in which oil forms as an "oil window" . Below the minimum temperature oil remains trapped in the form of kerogen. Above the maximum temperature the oil is converted to natural gas through the process of thermal cracking . Sometimes, oil formed at extreme depths may migrate and become trapped at

5775-473: The Nabors 14E rig (worth about $ 8 million) in nine minutes; it also scorched 1.6 km (400 acres) of forest. Amoco's direct costs to bring the well under control were approximately $ 20 million. Huge amounts of natural gas, natural gas liquids and sulphur were wasted through the disaster. This meant energy lost to consumers, revenues lost to the company, and royalties and taxes lost to government. According to

5880-602: The San Francisco Bay, cheap gas awaited. All they needed were pipelines . By the late 1980s and early 1990s, governments generally supported throwing open to all contenders the race to build pipelines. Competition among operators moving the gas to market - not government regulation - was supposed to keep transmission costs reasonable in the new milieu. As pipeline projects proliferated, natural gas producers sought new markets for their inexpensive and apparently plentiful product. Electrical power generation with gas became

5985-505: The Shell-operated Caroline field stood out as a $ 10 billion resource jewel. Although classified as a gas field , in the lower-price environment of the day sulfur, liquids and other by-products from the gas promised to exceed the value of the natural gas itself. However, this discovery proved complicated, environmentally sensitive and economically challenging. The planning and review process took from 1986 to 1990, and set

6090-586: The Soviet Union included the goal to capture the Baku oilfields , as it would provide much-needed oil supplies for the German military which was suffering from blockades. Oil exploration in North America during the early 20th century later led to the U.S. becoming the leading producer by mid-century. As petroleum production in the U.S. peaked during the 1960s, the United States was surpassed by Saudi Arabia and

6195-455: The Taylor plant had the capacity to process as much natural gas as all eleven of the other gas plants operating in Canada combined. The plant was also by far Canada's most northerly. Heavily insulated buildings protected the processing facilities and allowed them to function at temperatures typical of more southerly climes. [REDACTED] The enormous growth in Canadian processing capacity in

6300-576: The United States became the world's largest producer. About 80 percent of the world's readily accessible reserves are located in the Middle East , with 62.5 percent coming from the Arab five: Saudi Arabia , United Arab Emirates , Iraq , Qatar , and Kuwait . A large portion of the world's total oil exists as unconventional sources, such as bitumen in Athabasca oil sands and extra heavy oil in

6405-627: The air at a recorded rate of 480 cubic metres (3,000 bbl) per day. By the end of the 19th century the Russian Empire, particularly the Branobel company in Azerbaijan , had taken the lead in production. Access to oil was and still is a major factor in several military conflicts of the 20th century, including World War II , during which oil facilities were a major strategic asset and were extensively bombed . The German invasion of

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6510-551: The area around modern Baku , Azerbaijan . These fields were described by the Persian geographer Abu Bakr al-Razi in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain , distillation became available in Western Europe by

6615-474: The coal industry dominated the petroleum technologies. Chemist James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the coal mine at riddings Alfreton , Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a more viscous oil suitable for lubricating machinery. In 1848, Young set up a small business refining crude oil. Young eventually succeeded, by distilling cannel coal at low heat, in creating

6720-573: The earliest Chinese writings, cites that oil in its raw state, without refining, was first discovered, extracted, and used in China in the first century BCE. In addition, the Chinese were the first to record the use of petroleum as fuel as early as the fourth century BCE. By 347 CE, oil was produced from bamboo-drilled wells in China. In the 7th century, petroleum was among the essential ingredients for Greek fire , an incendiary projectile weapon that

6825-469: The environment and human health. Extraction , refining and burning of petroleum fuels all release large quantities of greenhouse gases , so petroleum is one of the major contributors to climate change . Other negative environmental effects include direct releases, such as oil spills , as well as air and water pollution at almost all stages of use. These environmental effects have direct and indirect health consequences for humans. Oil has also been

6930-483: The facilities. Shell Jumping Pound is sometimes referred to as Canada's "sour gas laboratory," for much of the industry's early understanding of sour gas processing came from experience there. It was the first sulphur plant in the world, its sulphur unit going into production in 1952. For this distinction it narrowly beat out the Madison Natural Gas plant which began extracting sulphur at Turner Valley later

7035-425: The fact that it happened at relatively low temperatures (when compared to commercial pyrolysis plants) of 60 to several hundred °C. Pyrolysis was possible because of the long reaction times involved. Heat for catagenesis came from the decomposition of radioactive materials of the crust, especially K , Th , U and U . The heat varied with geothermal gradient and was typically 10–30 °C per km of depth from

7140-455: The gas through deep refrigeration. In the early 1970s, companies began extracting the even lighter hydrocarbon ethane at some field processing and straddle plants. Ethane became a feedstock for Alberta's growing petrochemical industry , used in the manufacture of ethylene . From a slow start in 1952, sulphur production from gas processing snowballed as plant construction boomed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Tough new regulations enacted by

7245-815: The global economy. They led to sustained reductions in demand as a result of substitution to other fuels, especially coal and nuclear, and improvements in energy efficiency , facilitated by government policies. High oil prices also induced investment in oil production by non-OPEC countries, including Prudhoe Bay in Alaska, the North Sea offshore fields of the United Kingdom and Norway, the Cantarell offshore field of Mexico, and oil sands in Canada. About 90 percent of vehicular fuel needs are met by oil. Petroleum also makes up 40 percent of total energy consumption in

7350-408: The heavier end of the range, paraffin wax is an alkane with approximately 25 carbon atoms, while asphalt has 35 and up, although these are usually cracked in modern refineries into more valuable products. The lightest fraction, the so-called petroleum gases are subjected to diverse processing depending on cost. These gases are either flared off , sold as liquefied petroleum gas , or used to power

7455-658: The invention of the modern kerosene lamp (1853), the introduction of the first modern street lamp in Europe (1853), and the construction of the world's first modern oil "mine" (1854). at Bóbrka , near Krosno (still operational as of 2020). The demand for petroleum as a fuel for lighting in North America and around the world quickly grew. The first oil well in the Americas was drilled in 1859 by Edwin Drake at what

7560-446: The large number of co-eluted hydrocarbons within oil, many cannot be resolved by traditional gas chromatography. This unresolved complex mixture (UCM) of hydrocarbons is particularly apparent when analysing weathered oils and extracts from tissues of organisms exposed to oil. Crude oil varies greatly in appearance depending on its composition. It is usually black or dark brown (although it may be yellowish, reddish, or even greenish). In

7665-440: The late 1950s and early 1960s created large inventories of natural gas liquids, liquefied petroleum gases and sulfur . Growing supplies sometimes created marketing problems. Sales of gas liquids were seldom difficult because of their ready use in oil refining. Refiners also used butane for blending. Propane, on the other hand, presented a challenge because the volumes available greatly exceeded demand. Companies set out to widen

7770-411: The lower regions. As a consequence, compounds of this mixture began to combine in poorly understood ways to kerogen . Combination happened in a similar fashion as phenol and formaldehyde molecules react to urea-formaldehyde resins, but kerogen formation occurred in a more complex manner due to a bigger variety of reactants. The total process of kerogen formation from the beginning of anaerobic decay

7875-575: The market open to competition added to the gas surplus and to depressed gas prices. Suppliers across the continent began looking for new customers to make up in volume sales what they were unable to earn from low gas prices. But gas pipelines, built decades before, had little excess capacity . Debate on a second gas pipeline from Alberta to California served as a good example of changing values during this period. For decades, California consumers opposed rival pipelines for fear of having to pay higher gas prices to cover pipeline construction. Deregulation made

7980-479: The market with considerable success. Farmers and small communities not served by natural gas adopted it for home heating fuel . In the early 1960s, markets for liquid petroleum gases grew rapidly. Companies responded by building "straddle" plants. These facilities straddled gas pipelines to extract additional volumes of gas liquids from the gas stream. Where economic, field processors began "deep cutting" their own gas by installing facilities that culled more LPG from

8085-899: The matter to H 2 S and N 2 respectively by using the matter as a source for other reactants. Due to such anaerobic bacteria, at first, this matter began to break apart mostly via hydrolysis : polysaccharides and proteins were hydrolyzed to simple sugars and amino acids respectively. These were further anaerobically oxidized at an accelerated rate by the enzymes of the bacteria: e.g., amino acids went through oxidative deamination to imino acids , which in turn reacted further to ammonia and α-keto acids . Monosaccharides in turn ultimately decayed to CO 2 and methane . The anaerobic decay products of amino acids, monosaccharides, phenols and aldehydes combined into fulvic acids . Fats and waxes were not extensively hydrolyzed under these mild conditions. Some phenolic compounds produced from previous reactions worked as bactericides and

8190-432: The petroleum industry in Canada (natural gas)#Lodgepole blowout Natural gas has been used almost as long as crude oil in Canada , but its commercial development was not as rapid. This is because of special properties of this energy commodity : it is a gas , and it frequently contains impurities. The technical challenges involved to first process and then pipe it to market are therefore considerable. Furthermore,

8295-421: The pipeline companies common carriers so that any producer or marketer could buy space on the pipeline to move its gas. Gone were the days when the pipeline company moved the gas and also marketed it. As deregulation put an end to vertically integrated gas delivery and marketing, consuming regions began crying for additional pipeline capacity. In Alberta, half a continent away from America's east coast and from

8400-424: The products from Imperial Leduc to Edmonton. When markets could not be found for the propane, the board occasionally granted permission to flare it. The next important plant built in Canada resulted from the discovery in 1944 of a wet sour gas find by Shell Oil at Jumping Pound, west of Calgary . Calgary, Exshaw (where there was a cement factory) and Banff were all potential markets for Jumping Pound gas, but

8505-556: The proportion of chemical elements varies over fairly narrow limits as follows: Four different types of hydrocarbon appear in crude oil. The relative percentage of each varies from oil to oil, determining the properties of each oil. The alkanes from pentane (C 5 H 12 ) to octane (C 8 H 18 ) are refined into gasoline, the ones from nonane (C 9 H 20 ) to hexadecane (C 16 H 34 ) into diesel fuel , kerosene and jet fuel . Alkanes with more than 16 carbon atoms can be refined into fuel oil and lubricating oil . At

8610-644: The refinery's own burners. During the winter, butane (C 4 H 10 ), is blended into the gasoline pool at high rates, because its high vapour pressure assists with cold starts. The aromatic hydrocarbons are unsaturated hydrocarbons that have one or more benzene rings . They tend to burn with a sooty flame, and many have a sweet aroma. Some are carcinogenic . These different components are separated by fractional distillation at an oil refinery to produce gasoline, jet fuel, kerosene, and other hydrocarbon fractions. The components in an oil sample can be determined by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry . Due to

8715-412: The reservoir it is usually found in association with natural gas, which being lighter forms a "gas cap" over the petroleum, and saline water which, being heavier than most forms of crude oil, generally sinks beneath it. Crude oil may also be found in a semi-solid form mixed with sand and water, as in the Athabasca oil sands in Canada, where it is usually referred to as crude bitumen . In Canada, bitumen

8820-477: The rotten-egg odour of hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) in the gas could be smelled as far away as Winnipeg , nearly 1,500 kilometres distant. In this spectacular event, sour gas flowed at an estimated rate of 4.2 million cubic metres (150 million cubic feet) per day. The H 2 S content of the gas was 28 percent, and the well also produced 3,200 cubic metres per day (20 thousand barrels per day) of sulphur-contaminated, orange-coloured condensate . The well

8925-422: The rural west. Occasionally this led to tragedy, as in the case of the second of Amoco Canada 's Lodgepole blowouts. In 1982 near Lodgepole, Alberta , Amoco was drilling a sour gas well, which blew wild. Especially because the company had experienced a serious blowout in the same gas field five years earlier, regulatory and public opprobrium was intense. Much of the public outrage occurred because, on some days,

9030-518: The same time the world's first, small, oil refinery was opened at Jasło in Poland (then Austria), with a larger one opened at Ploiești in Romania shortly after. Romania (then being a vassal of the Ottoman empire) is the first country in the world to have had its annual crude oil output officially recorded in international statistics: 275 tonnes for 1857. In 1858, Georg Christian Konrad Hunäus found

9135-603: The same year. As the Westcoast and TransCanada natural gas pipelines went into operation in 1957, a new and better day dawned for Canadian gas processing. Most of the gas that travelled those pipelines needed processing to meet the specifications of pipeline companies. Consequently, the late 1950s and early 1960s saw a boom in gas plant construction. In 1957, a new gas plant at Taylor, near Fort St. John, British Columbia , began supplying Westcoast Transmission Co. Ltd. This plant's practices differed from those used in Alberta in

9240-523: The second half of the 19th century, the term became commonly known for the liquid form of hydrocarbons. Petroleum, in one form or another, has been used since ancient times. More than 4300 years ago, bitumen was mentioned when the Sumerians used it to make boats. A tablet of the legend of the birth of Sargon of Akkad mentions a basket which was closed by straw and bitumen. More than 4000 years ago, according to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus , asphalt

9345-414: The sour gas first required processing and sweetening. The gas plant began operating in 1951. Built "California-style," with few buildings or other provisions for a cold climate, the original Jumping Pound plant ran into problems. During the first winter, water condensation and other cold weather problems led to one operational failure after another. When the second winter arrived, buildings sheltered most of

9450-479: The substance by burning it and dispersing the by-products into the air from two tall stacks. One chemical result of burning hydrogen sulphide emissions was sulfur dioxide , another toxic gas. Since hydrogen sulphide is heavier than air, it settled to the ground, dispersed enough to be less than lethal. Hydrogen sulphide was always in the air in small concentrations. Turner Valley had a rotten egg odour on most days. As Alberta became an ever-larger oil producer after

9555-475: The sulfur from Caroline production, and was environmentally advanced in other areas. By the early 1990s, natural gas processing had come of age. Since its infancy, when operators removed only few of a gas stream's impurities, the gas sector had matured to become an important part of the petroleum industry and of the economy itself. Gas moved around the North American continent in unprecedented volumes. It

9660-408: The term stems from monasteries in southern Italy where it was in use by the end of the first millennium as an alternative for the older term " naphtha ". After that, the term was used in numerous manuscripts and books, such as in the treatise De Natura Fossilium , published in 1546 by the German mineralogist Georg Bauer , also known as Georgius Agricola. After the advent of the oil industry, during

9765-539: The title of E.W. Binney & Co. at Bathgate in West Lothian and E. Meldrum & Co. at Glasgow; their works at Bathgate were completed in 1851 and became the first truly commercial oil-works in the world with the first modern oil refinery. The world's first oil refinery was built in 1856 by Ignacy Łukasiewicz in Austria. His achievements also included the discovery of how to distill kerosene from seep oil,

9870-586: The transition to cleaner energy sources. The institute's current work is regionally focused. In Alberta they call for restricting energy development (conventional and unconventional oil and gas as well as oil sands ) to limits supported by science. They promote renewable energy sources including wind and solar , and advocate shutting down coal-fired electricity plants . They support energy efficiency policies and actions in communities and businesses, and improved building efficiency. They have called for expanding transit infrastructure and limiting urban sprawl in

9975-468: The volume of the world's reserves of conventional oil. Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived from fossilized organic materials , such as zooplankton and algae . Vast amounts of these remains settled to sea or lake bottoms where they were covered in stagnant water (water with no dissolved oxygen ) or sediments such as mud and silt faster than they could decompose aerobically . Approximately 1 m below this sediment, water oxygen concentration

10080-524: Was Imperial 's Leduc facility (sometimes called Imperial Devon or Imperial Leduc ). It sweetened the gas with monoethanolamine (MEA), then extracted the liquid hydrocarbons by refrigeration . Northwestern Utilities Limited bought the gas at $ 14.12 per thousand cubic metres and distributed it in Edmonton . Trucks transported the propane , butane and " pentanes plus " (the Canadian term for heavier gas liquids) until 1954, when three pipelines began moving

10185-634: Was activity in various parts of the world in the mid-19th century. A group directed by Major Alexeyev of the Bakinskii Corps of Mining Engineers hand-drilled a well in the Baku region of Bibi-Heybat in 1846. There were engine-drilled wells in West Virginia in the same year as Drake's well. An early commercial well was hand dug in Poland in 1853, and another in nearby Romania in 1857. At around

10290-465: Was and is an environmentally desirable fuel, and gas processing is the handmaiden of natural gas sales. While Canada is one of the world's three largest gas producers (the other two are Russia and the United States), it does not host many of the world's largest gas fields which are currently in production. Several large fields are, however, not yet in production, especially massive resources in

10395-496: Was appealed, and on October 1, 2013, the decision was overturned by the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench . The Pembina Institute is primarily funded by a range of project-specific grants, event sponsorships (including those from energy companies such as Suncor, Shell and Bullfrog Power ) and individual donations. The institute also performs fee-for-service research and advising to government and industry. History of

10500-414: Was closed off from external reactants, the resulting composition of the fuel mixture was dependent on the composition of the kerogen via reaction stoichiometry . Three types of kerogen exist: type I (algal), II (liptinic) and III (humic), which were formed mainly from algae , plankton and woody plants (this term includes trees , shrubs and lianas ) respectively. Catagenesis was pyrolytic despite

10605-423: Was low, below 0.1 mg/L, and anoxic conditions existed. Temperatures also remained constant. As further layers settled into the sea or lake bed, intense heat and pressure built up in the lower regions. This process caused the organic matter to change, first into a waxy material known as kerogen , found in various oil shales around the world, and then with more heat into liquid and gaseous hydrocarbons via

10710-408: Was more producible gas than markets demanded. Although market analysts regularly forecast the end of the bubble as only a few years away, the bubble refused to burst. Some called it the "gas sausage", as it extended over time. The perceived problem of large gas inventories overhanging the market and keeping down prices did not begin to disappear until the late 1990s. Crude oil prices dropped throughout

10815-405: Was out of control for 68 days, during 23 of which the well was not ignited. During that time H 2 S from the blowout killed two blowout specialists and sent 16 other people to hospital. Today, operators are required to ignite the well quickly in the event of a major sour gas blowout. This eliminates the dangers of highly toxic H 2 S in the air. When the crew ignited the well, the fire destroyed

10920-479: Was used by Byzantine Greeks against Arab ships, which were then attacking Constantinople . Crude oil was also distilled by Persian chemists , with clear descriptions given in Arabic handbooks such as those of Abu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes). The streets of Baghdad were paved with tar , derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in

11025-544: Was used in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon ; there were oil pits near Ardericca and Babylon, and a pitch spring on Zakynthos . Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus , one of the tributaries of the Euphrates . Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society. The use of petroleum in ancient China dates back to more than 2000 years ago. The I Ching , one of

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