Alberta's oil industry is a key component of the provincial economy accounting for thousands of jobs in exploration, production, transportation, refining, distribution, and marketing. To ensure that this valuable resource contributes to our province, Alberta Energy manages the province’s resources by promoting and encouraging exploration and development of reserves, calculating and collecting royalties from producers, and marketing the Crown's share of crude oil production through private sector and in-house marketing agents. The Department also supports the development of new technologies for recovering oil and reducing the impact of oil development on our environment. Together with industry, we focus on finding innovative and more efficient ways to extract a higher percentage of crude oil from conventional reservoirs. Most of the crude oil produced in Alberta is exported to other markets. The crude oil that remains in the province is refined into transportation fuels and other oil products to heat homes and buildings, generate electricity, and manufacture lubricants, waxes, plastics, synthetic rubber and asphalt.
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