December 2024
Energy companies use water throughout the life cycles of their projects and activities. It's our job to ensure that Alberta's energy industry uses water resources responsibly and identify where there is room for improvement.
Our Alberta Water Use Performance Report shows how water is allocated and used to recover oil, gas, and oil sands resources. This annual report is part of our larger industry performance program, which measures, evaluates, and reports on the energy development activities that we regulate.
Our report provides information about water allocation and use for four oil and gas extraction technologies:
- oil sands mining
- in situ oil sands
- enhanced oil recovery
- hydraulic fracturing
Because the volume of water used for conventional oil and gas drilling and operations is typically quite small, it is not discussed in the report. Water used for refining and processing activities is also not included in the report.
2023 Report Highlights
- 13% of nonsaline water allocated to all industries in the province was allocated for Alberta’s energy industry. The Alberta energy industry used 22% of their nonsaline water allocation.
- 82% of the water use by the oil and gas industry was recycled water, 17% was nonsaline, and 1% was alternative water.
- Nonsaline water use intensity across the energy industry has decreased by 19% since 2013.
- The oil sands mining sector drives water use intensity and accounts for 82% of the nonsaline water used in 2023 by the energy industry.
- Nonsaline water use intensity in the oil sands mining sector was 2.07 barrels (bbl) per barrel of oil equivalent (BOE), a 28% decrease since 2013.
- In 2023, 79% of the water used for oil sands mining was recycled water, and 8% was make-up water from surface runoff and groundwater within the mining footprint. Recycling water and using surface runoff and groundwater reduces the volume of water withdrawn from the Athabasca River (13%).
- Nonsaline water use intensity for hydraulic fracturing was 0.67 bbl/BOE. Hydraulically fractured wells use water for the initial fracturing, but usually none after the well starts producing hydrocarbons. Consequently, water intensity for hydraulic fracturing wells is high during the first 12 months of production, falling to 0.07 bbl/BOE after ten years of production for the average hydraulically fractured well.
- Nonsaline water use intensity for enhanced oil recovery was 0.52 bbl/BOE.
- Nonsaline water use intensity for in situ oil sands operations was 0.15 bbl/BOE.
The figure below shows the nonsaline water use intensity for the extraction technologies discussed.
2023 Data
Data for this report are available in 2023 water use data [xlsx].
Find out how water is allocated in the Water Availability and Allocation section.
