Western Canada Sedimentary Basin

The Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB)[1][2] underlies 1.4 million square kilometres (540,000 sq mi) of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories.

This wedge is about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) thick under the Rocky Mountains, but thins to zero at its eastern margins.

For conventional heavy oil, the industry is exploring new zones in undrilled portions of the basin to find remaining undiscovered pools, or to apply EOR schemes such as water floods, thermal projects, and miscible floods such as the Vapour Extraction Process (VAPEX) technology.

Improved seismic and drilling technology, higher recoveries from existing pools through infill drilling, and efficient, cost-effective exploration and development of smaller pools are maintaining levels of conventional oil production in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.

[6] By 2007 the Alberta natural bitumen deposits were the source of over one third of the crude oil produced in Canada.

Production from the basin peaked in 2001 at around 16 billion cubic feet (450,000,000 m3) per day and was predicted in 2003, by the National Energy Board to be likely to decline from that level.

[10] The number of coalbed methane wells in Alberta more than doubled in 2005, to 7764 by the end of that year, producing nearly 0.5 billion cubic feet (14,000,000 m3) of gas per day.

More than 95 percent of the CBM wells were completed in the Upper Cretaceous Horseshoe Canyon and Belly River formations, at typical depths of 300 to 2,400 feet (91–732 m).

The low sulfur content and acceptable ash levels of these bituminous coals make them attractive as coking feedstocks, and large quantities are mined for that purpose.