The scale of the oil sands industry today is hard to comprehend. The machinery is gigantic, the operations cover many square kilometres, and vast sums of money are invested to build plants to extract the oil from the sand. The Bitumount plant is tiny in comparison.
How did this transformation come about? Was it gradual? Did the industry grow at a steady pace and evolve slowly over time? Not exactly. The logistics of oil sands production dictate that there can be no small oil sands mining operations.
In the years immediately following Bitumount’s successful run, exploration and mapping were the major activities in the field. This was because it was apparent that, in order to be successful, any oil sands operation had to be on a grand scale. Exploration revealed that the area in the vicinity of Mildred Lake and Ruth Lake was especially promising as a location for oil sands mining. The pay thickness of the oil sand was good, the deposit was extensive, and the overburden was not too heavy. This was just the combination that could prove to be profitable, if the project could be launched at a large enough scale.
It took a while to assemble the resources, but eventually, in 1963, the sod was turned on the Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) project. Karl Clark was on hand for the occasion. When Clark died in 1967, it may have been the end of one era, but another began with the completion of the GCOS plant later that same year. The plant was the first truly commercial oil sands operation—the first of many.
Since mining the oil sands is possible only in a relatively small portion of the deposit’s total area, recent efforts have focused on developing in situ methods of extracting the oil. The percentage of the oil that can be extracted from the sands using these methods is lower than is possible with mined oil sands, but it is still worth the effort, as deposits beyond the reach of excavation can be accessed.
The future holds many unanswered questions regarding oil sands development, but an examination of the past suggests that ingenuity and determination, along with research and experimentation, will continue to shape the industry.