With progressive depletion of the more easily recoverable oil reserves in western Canada the volumes of waste generated during heavy oil production and processing are steadily increasing. The 600 million litres of heavy oil produced in 1998 accounted for 40% of the total oil production in all of Canada. The safe disposal of these heavy oil wastes has become an environmental issue. We believe agriculture can provide effective solutions for some of the oi] and gas industry’s disposal problems by utilizing the organic C-rich wastes to amend nearby areas of marginally productive cropland
The objectives of our field experiment at Richmound, SK are to generate benchmark data needed by regulatory agencies and by the oil and gas industry to jointly develop guidelines and protocols that will enable and control the future use of increasing volumes of hydrocarbon wastes - in an agronomically and environmentally sound manner - as soil amendments on private farmland in Alberta and Saskatchewan.