Sherritt-Plant-Fort-Saskatchewan-Alberta-Canada-02A

Alberta's Industrial Heartland (also known as Upgrader Alley or the Heartland) is the largest industrial area in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West, or Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a list of regions of Canada, Canadian region that includes the four western provinces and t ...

and a joint

land-use planning Land use planning or ''Land-use regulation'' is the process of regulating the use of land by a central authority. Usually, this is done to promote more desirable social and environmental outcomes as well as a more efficient use of resources. ...

and development initiative between five

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality' ...

in the

Edmonton Capital Region Edmonton is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region, and is in Treaty 6 terr ...

to attract investment in the chemical, petrochemical, oil, and gas industries to the region. It is "home to more than 40 petrochemical companies" and is one of Canada's largest petrochemical processing regions." By July 2015 there was $13 billion invested in new industrial projects providing employment for 25,000 in the Alberta's Industrial Heartland.

Geography

Alberta's Industrial Heartland (AIH) comprises of land split between the City of

Fort Saskatchewan Fort Saskatchewan is a city along the North Saskatchewan River in Alberta, Canada. It is northeast of Edmonton, the provincial capital. It is part of the Edmonton Capital Region#Edmonton CMA, Edmonton census metropolitan area and one of 24 muni ...

, Lamont County,

Strathcona County Strathcona County is a Specialized municipalities of Alberta, specialized municipality in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region within Alberta, Canada between Edmonton and Elk Island National Park. It forms part of Division No. 11, Alberta, Census Di ...

, and

Sturgeon County Sturgeon County is a municipal district in the Edmonton Metropolitan Region of Alberta, Canada. It is north of Edmonton and west of the North Saskatchewan River. Sturgeon County is located in Division No. 11 and was named for the Sturgeon Rive ...

, as well as the Edmonton Energy and Technology Park in northeast

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

. At a total size of , AIH is the largest geographic area in Canada dedicated to hydrocarbon processing. The largest completed project to date is the Scotford Complex, which includes an upgrader, a refinery, and two railyards.

Membership

Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association (AIHA) was founded in 1998 by the City of Fort Saskatchewan, Lamont County, Strathcona County, and Sturgeon County. The City of Edmonton became a member of AIHA in 2010. The nearby towns of Bruderheim,

Gibbons Gibbons may refer to: * Gibbon, an ape in the family Hylobatidae * Gibbons (surname) * Gibbons, Alberta Gibbons is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located on Alberta Highway 28A, Highway 28A, northeast of Edmonton. Gibbons is situate ...

and Redwater are associate members of AIHA.

Refinery Row (Edmonton)

Refinery Row refers to the concentration of

oil refineries An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied pet ...

in west

Sherwood Park Sherwood Park is a large hamlet in Alberta, Canada within Strathcona County that is recognized as an urban service area. It is adjacent to the City of Edmonton's eastern boundary. While long confined to generally south of Highway 16 ( Ye ...

, Alberta, just east of the city of

. The two main refineries in Refinery Row are the

Strathcona Refinery The Strathcona Refinery is an oil refinery located in Strathcona County adjacent to Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, owned by Imperial Oil. The refinery provides oil products, primarily gasoline, aviation fuel, diesel, lubricating oils, petroleum waxes ...

(

Imperial Oil Imperial Oil Limited () is a Canadian petroleum company. It is Canada's second-largest integrated oil company. It is majority-owned by American oil company ExxonMobil, with a 69.6% ownership stake in the company. It is a producer of crude oil, ...

), and the Suncor Edmonton Refinery (

Suncor Energy Suncor Energy Inc. () is a Canada, Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary, Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000, Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-largest public ...

) The other main refineries in the Edmonton area are also in Strathcona County, in a separate concentration around Scotford, Alberta.

Air quality

In response to a request from to the Canadian Press, researchers from the

University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...

released results of new air-quality tests in 2015 from Alberta's Industrial Heartland. The team visited the AIH on July 8 to 12, 2012, their third visit. The peer-reviewed 2013 publication based on samples taken during their 2008 and 2010 visits, "found smog-causing chemicals at levels comparable to — and occasionally many times higher than — some of the world's largest cities and industrial complexes." Although the new tests revealed that the spikes of concentrated toxic plumes were short-lived, Donald Blake remarked that "These are the kinds of numbers we don't see in Los Angeles... If this is something that is blowing at somebody's house, and they're getting five to 20 parts per billion of benzene at them all the time ... that starts to worry me." Air quality in the Industrial Heartland and surrounding area is monitored by the not-for-profit Fort Air Partnership (FAP), formed in 1997.

References

External links

* {{Edmonton Petroleum industry in Alberta 1998 establishments in Alberta Economy of Edmonton Edmonton Metropolitan Region Geography of Edmonton Fort Saskatchewan Industrial parks in Alberta Lamont County Strathcona County Sturgeon County