Project Profile
Value: US$3.6 Billion
Location: 70 km north of Fort McMurray, Alberta Province, Canada
Capacity: 500,000 bpd
Start-up year: 4Q 2017 (Phase 3)
The Horizon Oil Sands Project of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd (CNRL) consists of open pit mining operation and bitumen extraction facilities to mine and separate the raw bitumen from the oil sands. CNRL then upgrades the bitumen to a sweet synthetic crude oil (SCO) using proven delayed coking and hydro-treating technologies.
The Project is located 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray, where Canadian Natural owns and operates leases covering 115,000 acres through lease arrangements with the Province of Alberta. Drilling on the leases indicates an estimated 16 billion barrels of bitumen in place, with approximately 6 - 8 billion recoverable barrels under existing mining technologies.
Operational in early 2009, the US$9.7 billion Phase 1 of the project has reached production capacity of 110,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil (SCO) per day. Several future expansion phases will bring capacity up to 250,000 barrels of SCO per day then, ultimately, 500,000 bpd.The project will see the construction of an open-pit (surface) mining technique, and extraction plant. The ultimate capacity will be 500,000 bpd for 40 years.
The bitumen will be upgraded on site. The project will be executed in phases:
Phase 1: First oil at production rate of 110 mbbls/d. (US$9.7 billion) (Now complete)
Phase 2 and 3: Fort McKay Surface mining
Phase 2B: Complete (October, 2016)
Phase 3: Anticipated to be complete in Q4 2017
Operators:
Canadian Natural Resources (CNR): Operator with 100% interest
Contractors:
Aecon Group Inc.: Several modules for CoGen facility
Bantrel Co. (Bechtel): Secondary upgrading
Colt Engineering (WorleyParsons): GKO extraction
Emerson Process Management: Digitally automate the first phase
Flint Energy Services: Maintenanceon bitumen production facilities and pipeline maintenance
Fluor Canada Ltd.: Design services
Jacobs: Design work for upgrader
KBR: Upgrading primary
Saipem: Build secondary upgrader
Joint Venture for 3 hydrotreating plants EPC:
Snamprogetti Spa Canada Inc (Saipem)
SNC Lavalin Inc.
Technip: Expansion of the existing delayed coker unit
Willbros: Procurement and construction services for pipelines and facilities