Oil Sands

Oil sands are a deposit of sand and rock that contain bitumen. Bitumen is a dense and very viscous form of oil which needs to be processed before it can be refined. Oil sands are found primarily in the Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River regions of northern Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada, and in areas of Venezuela, Kazakhstan, and Russia.

APEX’s experience is focused providing wellsite geological supervision for drilling, recovery and analysis of core samples from the oil sands of northern Alberta. Coring operations are generally completed in the winter months which enable the deployment of drill rigs and additional support equipment to remote areas of the oil sands. Supervision of drilling and procedures places emphasis on efficiency of recovery in order to obtain a high percentage of core retrieved. Core samples extracted are immediately evaluated to determine the depth and quality of oil sands prior to being sent for laboratory analysis.