The primary industries in Alberta, Canada are energy, lumber, farming and ranching. Motto: Fortis et liber (Latin: Strong and free) Official languages English (see below) Flower   Wild rose Tree Lodgepole Pine Bird Great Horned Owl Capital Edmonton Largest city Calgary Lieutenant-Governor Norman Kwong Premier Ralph Klein (PC) Parliamentary representation  - House seat  - Senate seats 28 6 Area Total  - Land  - Water  (% of total... Loggers on break, c. ... Agriculture (a term which encompasses farming) is the process of producing food, feed, fiber and other goods by the systematic raising of plants and animals. ... Ranching is the raising of cattle or sheep on rangeland, although one might also speak of ranching with regard to less common livestock such as elk, bison or emu. ...

While gold and other mining operations still exist from the time of the Klondike Gold Rush, they have diminished in importance as oil and gas extraction have achieved dominance in the 1980s and 1990s. General Name, Symbol, Number gold, Au, 79 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 6, d Appearance metallic yellow Atomic mass 196. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... A typical gold mining operation, on Bonanza Creek. ... Pumpjack pumping an oil well near Sarnia, Ontario Ignacy Łukasiewicz - inventor of the refining of kerosene from crude oil. ... Natural gas is commonly referred to as gas. ...

The Energy Industry

The Alberta Oilpatch

Since the early 1940s, Alberta had supplied oil and gas to the rest of Canada and the United States. The Athabasca River region produces oil for internal and external use. The Athabasca Oil Sands contain the largest proven reserves of oil in the world. Natural gas has been found at several points, and in 1999, the production of natural gas liquids (ethane, propane, and butanes) totaled 172.8 million barrels (27,000,000 m³), valued at $2.27 billion. Alberta also provides 13% of all the natural gas used in the United States. Oilpatch is a term used in reference to the petroleum industry, particularily in Alberta, Canada. ... Hudsons Bay Companys scow in Athabasca River, circa 1910 The Athabasca River originates from the Athabasca Glacier of the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park in Alberta. ... The Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta, Canada. ... Natural gas is commonly referred to as gas. ... Ethane is a chemical compound with chemical formula C2H6. ... Propane is a three-carbon alkane, normally a gas, but compressible to a liquid that is transportable in inexpensive containers. ... Butane, also called n-butane, is the unbranched alkane with four carbon atoms, CH3CH2CH2CH3. ...

Notable gas reserves were discovered in the 1890s, when the town of Medicine Hat began using gas for lighting the town, and suppling light and fuel for the people, and a number of industries using the gas for manufacturing. In fact a large glassworks was established at Redcliff. When Rudyard Kipling visited Medicine Hat he described it as the city "with all hell for a basement." Medicine Hat, known to locals as the Hat, is a city located in the southeastern part of the province of Alberta, Canada. ... Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was a British author and poet, born in India, and best known for his childrens books, including The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), Just So Stories (1902), and Puck of Pooks Hill (1906); his...

Basic Stats 1

• In 2003, Alberta produced 629,000 barrels per day (bbl/d) of conventional light, medium, and heavy crude, plus an additional 142,000 bbl/d of pentanes plus used for blending with heavy crude oil and bitumen to facilitate its transportation through pipelines.
• The conventional oil resource is estimated to have approximately 1.6 billion barrels of remaining established reserves.
• Conventional crude oil production (not including oil sands and pentanes plus) represented 38.6 per cent of Alberta ’s total crude oil and equivalent production and 25.5 per cent of Canada’s total crude oil and equivalent production.
• Alberta's oil sands reserve is considered to be one of the largest in the world, containing 1.6 trillion barrels of bitumen initially in place. Of this total, 174.5 billion barrels are considered to be remaining established reserves, recoverable using current technology under present and anticipated economic conditions. To date, about 2 per cent of the initial established resource has been produced.
• In 2003,total crude bitumen production in Alberta averaged 964,000 bbl/d.
• Disposition of Alberta ’s total crude oil and equivalent production in 2003 was approximately:

• 62 per cent to the United States
• 24 per cent within Alberta
• 14 per cent to the rest of Canada

• In 2003, Alberta produced 4.97 Tcf of marketable natural gas.

Coal

Vast beds of coal are found extending for hundreds of miles, a short distance below the surface of the plains. The coal belongs to the Cretaceous beds, and while not so heavy as that of the Coal Measures in England is of excellent quality. In the valley of the Bow River, alongside the Canadian Pacific Railway, valuable beds of anthracite coal are still worked. The usual coal deposits of the Province of Alberta are of bituminous or semi-bituminous coal. These are largely worked at Lethbridge in southern Alberta and Edmonton in the centre of the province. Many other parts of the province have pits for private use. The Cretaceous Period is one of the major divisions of the geologic timescale, reaching from the end of the Jurassic Period (i. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Government Constitutional monarchy  - Queen Queen Elizabeth II  - Prime Minister Tony Blair MP Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq... The Bow River is a river in the Canadian province of Alberta. ... The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR; AAR reporting marks CP, CPAA, CPI), known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a Canadian Class I railway operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited. ... Lethbridge is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. ... Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta, situated in the north central region of the province, an area with some of the most fertile farm land on the prairies. ...

Other industries

In 1999, lumber products from Alberta were valued at $4.1 billion of which 72% were exported around the world. Since forests cover approximately 59% of the province's land area, the government allows about 23,300,000 cubic metres to be harvested annually from the forests on public lands. Lumber is the name used, generally in North America, for wood that has been cut into boards or other shapes for the purpose of woodworking or construction. ...

In the past, cattle, horses, and sheep were reared in the southern prairie region on ranches or smaller holdings. Currently Alberta produces cattle valued at over $3.3 billion, as well as other livestock in lesser quantities. In this region irrigation is widely used. Wheat, accounting for almost half of the $2 billion agricultural economy, is supplemented by canola, barley, rye, sugar beets, and other mixed farming. Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (called cows in vernacular and contemporary usage, kine or kyne in pre-modern English, or kye as the Scots plural of cou) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... horse, see Horse (disambiguation). ... Binomial name Ovis aries Linnaeus, 1758 The domestic sheep (Ovis aries), the most common species of the sheep genus (Ovis), is a woolly ruminant quadruped which probably descends from the wild mouflon of south-central and south-west Asia. ... High-altitude aerial view of irrigation in the Heart of the Sahara ( ) Irrigation is the replacement or supplementation of rainfall with water from another source in order to grow crops or plants. ... Species T. boeoticum T. compactum T. dicoccoides T. dicoccon T. durum T. monococcum T. spelta T. sphaerococcum References:   ITIS 42236 2002-09-22 Wheat (Triticum spp. ... Canola field near Red Deer, Alberta In agriculture, Canola is a trademarked cultivar of the rapeseed plant from which rapeseed oil is obtained. ... Binomial name Hordeum vulgare L. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) is a major food and animal feed crop, a member of the grass family Poaceae. ... Binomial name Secale cereale M.Bieb. ... Two sugar beets - the one on the left has been cultivated to be smoother than the traditional beet, so that it traps less soil. ...

Alberta is the richest province in Canada (GDP per capita wise) and if it were its own country, it would be ranked second richest in the world (after Luxembourg). The average Albertan salary is more than $7,000 US higher than the American average. If oil prices do not collapse, then within a few short years Albertans are expected to have not only the highest salaries in the world but also the highest quality of life.

A 2003 study by TD Bank Financial Group found that the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is the only Canadian urban centre to attain a U.S level of wealth while maintaining a Canadian-style quality of life, offering universal health care benefits. The study found GDP per capita in the corridor is 10 percent above average U.S. metropolitan areas and 40 percent above other Canadian cities. The Calgary-Edmonton Corridor is a geographical region of the Canadian province of Alberta. ...

See also

• Canadian Oil Patch, for the petroleum industry

Drilling rig in northern Alberta Canadian Oil Patch is how the Oil and Gas Industry is called in Canada, especially in Alberta where it is also called the Alberta Oil Patch or simply, the patch. The term refers especially to upstream operations (exploration and production of oil and gas), and...

External links

• CBC Digital Archives - Striking Oil in Alberta