Key Industries

Crude Oil and Natural Gas
Northern Alberta is a significant contributor to this province’s oil and gas prosperity, generating over $27 billion annually with 36% of Alberta's natural gas and 58% of the province's oil production.

Oil Sands
Northern Alberta has almost all of Canada's oil sands development and is one of the world's two largest sources of bitumen. Oil sands production represents about 58% of Alberta's and 39% of Canada's total crude oil and equivalent production. In 2005, total crude bitumen production in Alberta averaged over one million barrels per day.

Forestry
Ninety percent of the province's potentially productive forests are found in Northern Alberta, sustaining Alberta's successful forest industry. Lumber, panel board, and pulp and paper production in Northern Alberta, accounted for 78% of the province's forestry revenues in 2005. Value-added processing of forest products is still a fledgling industry but an area of anticipated growth.

Agriculture
Northern Alberta accounted for $372 million of the province's international agriculture exports in 2005, including 22% of Alberta's crop and 5% of the province’s international livestock exports. Major agricultural products include wheat, barley, canola, alfalfa, hay, cattle and hogs. Honey production is another important activity with 37% of the province's bee colonies found in the region.

Tourism
Northern Alberta services over 1.5 million visitors annually and generates over $332 million of revenues. Abundant lakes, forests and wildlife provide excellent resources for the growing northern tourism industry.

Northern Alberta's Contributions to the Economy

Exports: $30.9 billion of international commodity exports in 2005, 39% of Alberta's total.

Alberta Government Revenues: $5.8 billion, 20% of Alberta's total in 2004-2005.

Value of Major International Exports (2005)
Oil                 $18.6 billion
Natural Gas     $8.8 billion
Forestry         $2.5 billion

Capital Investment of Major Projects in Northern Alberta: More than $120 billion worth of oil sands investments have been announced for the 2006-2015 period.

A Look to the Future

Through research and innovation, there is enormous potential to add value to the region's primary products, diversify the economy, improve efficiency in processing resources, and explore other resource development opportunities.

Alberta’s oil sands reserve is considered to be one of the largest in the world, containing 1.7 trillion barrels of bitumen initially in-place. Of this total, 174 billion barrels are considered to be remaining established reserves, recoverable using current technology under present and anticipated economic conditions. To date, about 3% of the initial established resource has been produced.

Opportunities to diversify the agriculture product base and expand processing activities in alternative crop production, ethanol/bio-diesel production and meat processing activities.

Gold, diamond, precious gem, and base metal exploration in Northern Alberta totaled more than $70 million in 1999 and resulted in some encouraging discoveries. There is potential to diversify the northern economy with these new resource development opportunities.