Oilsands Review - September 2006

The level of industrial development is growing in central Alberta.

Some of the biggest projects in the AIHA area in terms of revenue include Enbridge’s Gateway pipeline, billed at $4 billion, Synenco’s Sturgeon county upgrader, ticketed at $3.6 billion, and BA’s Heartland Upgrader, at $1.8 billion.

The proposed 400,000-barrel-per- day, Gateway pipeline would run product from Strathcona County to the west coast of British Columbia, where it would be further shipped to points in California and the Far East. The pipeline could be operational by 2009– 10 if construction begins in 2008, as Enbridge hopes.

Synenco’s Sturgeon County upgrader will be built 40 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. The location will “improve our ability to control construction costs and access labour,” says Synenco president and chief executive officer Todd Newton. “The possibility exists in Sturgeon County to do things such as process third-party bitumen and access a more active market for byproducts of the upgrading complex.”

The Heartland Upgrader could come online by 2010, with production slated at about 50,000 barrels per day of refin-ery-ready oil by the end of that year. Total capacity is slated at 100,000 barrels per day by 2012.

While BA’s slated investment hovers near $1.8 billion, the first phase of its project runs half that amount at $900 million. The company received budget approval for this first phase from its board of directors recently, with start-up planned in early 2008. The first phase will process 77,500 barrels per day of bitumen blend. Total capacity will eventually reach 250,000 barrels per day, around 2011.

Other significant developments include Petro-Canada’s Edmonton refinery conversion, a $1.2-billion project that will allow it to process oilsands feedstock exclusively, with completion planned for 2008; the Fort Hills Energy Sturgeon upgrader, a joint effort between Petro-Canada, UTS, and Teck Cominco that will seek regulatory approvals in late 2006 or early 2007 for a 190,000-barrel- per-day facility; Shell’s Scotford upgrader expansion, which will boost production to 500,000 barrels per day by 2010; and North West Upgrading’s 60,000-barrel- per-day upgrading facility, where start-up is anticipated in 2009.

The activity in the AIHA region is not going unnoticed.

“Certainly, there’s impact and interest and curiosity in what’s going on,” says Fort Saskatchewan Mayor Jim Sheasgreen. “There’s a real interest in these projects.”