Country Canada | ||
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Region Alberta and Saskatchewan Offshore/onshore Onshore, unconventional | ||
The Cold Lake oil sands are a large deposit of oil sands (also known as tar sands) located near Cold Lake, Alberta. Cold Lake is east of Alberta's capital, Edmonton, near Alberta's border with Saskatchewan, and a small portion of the Cold Lake field lies in Saskatchewan.
In 2013, a major oil spill occurred, when bitumen seeped through the soil, killing wildlife. This is a new kind of spill, with no known way to stop it. It had been going on for several weeks (maybe even months) before it was reported to the public.
In 1980 a plant in Cold Lake was one of just two oil sands plants under construction in Alberta. In 1980 Canada's federal government was considering dropping its assistance in the development of Alberta's oil sand in favor of offshore oil deposits east of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Some of the oil sands in the Cold Lake deposit have a low enough density that they can be extracted through drilling, as opposed to mining.