Saskatchewan’s success with uranium could be Alberta’s newfound success with the oil sands

Commentary

Saskatchewan, one of the world’s leading sources of uranium production, recently announced a major achievement.

“Saskatchewan is now the second largest producer of uranium in the world!” Prime Minister Scott Moe tweeted on June 15. “Saskatchewan ranked third in 2021 and has now passed Namibia and Australia, placing our province at the forefront of providing a reliable, stable and sustainable supply of uranium.”

Moe’s tweet continued, “As production is expected to nearly double in Saskatchewan this year, this increase will bring more jobs and opportunities to people back home. That is growth that works for everyone.”

The “Uranium Production Figures, 2013-2022” from the World Nuclear Association confirmed this impressive statistic. While all countries are well behind Kazakhstan on uranium enrichment, Canada has bounced back after losing a few steps in 2020 and 2021 due to mine closures during COVID-19. This is largely due to Saskatchewan’s nearly $1 billion a year uranium industry.

“The Cigar Lake mine and McClean Lake plant operated continuously through 2022, resulting in increased production,” the Saskatchewan government says. marked in a June 13 press release. At the same time, “the reopening of the McArthur River mine and Key Lake plant, announced in February 2022, has also contributed to Saskatchewan’s increased uranium production in the later months of the year.”

Saskatchewan, which employed 1,842 people in uranium production in 2021, “is currently expected to produce 15 million kilograms of yellowcake, nearly double last year.” If this estimate comes out in 2023, Canada could eventually become as competitive with Kazakhstan’s uranium production as it was between 2015 and 2017.

Saskatchewan’s major step on the uranium production table, as is its world leader status in the potash industry, exemplifies Canada’s economic potential when it comes to areas such as mining, oil and gas exploration and energy independence. Unfortunately, some of this potential has been untapped and unrealized for decades.

The Alberta oil sands are a good example.

According to the Alberta government website, the oil sands produces 160.1 billion barrels per year. This includes Athabasca, the largest oil sands deposit in the city of Fort McMurray, along with the Cold Lake oil sands and Peace River oil sands. Raw bitumen production will total 3.3 million barrels per day in 2021. This means that the province has the fourth largest oil reserves in the world after Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Iran.

That’s great, but there’s an important problem that remains unsolved.

These statistics refer only to proven reserves, or the surface mining of raw bitumen production that has been accounted for. A vast body of Alberta’s oil sands, as well as the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin that includes Alberta, southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, northeastern British Columbia, and the southwestern corner of the Northwest Territories, was never developed. According to to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, “since oil sands operations began in the 1960s, approximately 8% of the active mining footprint has been or is being recovered.”

Why has oil sands development in Alberta been so limited?

It is mainly due to longstanding historical divisions between the provincial government and anti-oil activists, left-wing environmental groups, some First Nation bands, and others. Organizations such as GreenpeaceCanada preferring to use the old, obsolete name “tar sands” to describe the oil sands deposit, claiming that it is a “chief culprit” in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change and our carbon footprint, and that “the world cannot afford to expand [it] if we want to preserve this planet for future generations.”

It is not surprising that these politically motivated and agenda-driven groups have ignored new technological developments in the oil and gas industry that have helped make the process safer, more effective and cleaner. John Bailey specifically isolated five for the US-based Oilman Magazine in an October 28, 2019 piece, including data analytics, electronic monitoring and artificial intelligence. No doubt many more will be developed in the coming years.

Exploiting the unproven reserves of the oil sands would undoubtedly increase total oil production in Alberta and Western Canada. It would also significantly increase overall profits and lead to more drilling expeditions, domestic and international investment and employment for Canadians.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith knows the oil sands are vital to her province. She will hopefully explore ways to increase oil production after her successful reelection bid. It’s also something Conservative leader Pierre Poilièvre could take up as an issue related to Canada’s energy independence either on or before the next federal election.

Saskatchewan’s newfound success with uranium could serve as a model (and motivating factor) for Alberta’s potential success with the oil sands. Since Saskatchewan is also geographically linked to some of Alberta’s undeveloped oil reserve, there should be plenty of interest, motivation and ways to share information, ideas and future goals for oil sands development.

The views expressed in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.