Horizon Oil Sands
Canadian Natural Resources Limited is involved in the extraction of oil sands reserves utilizing both open pit mining and in-situ techniques.
The Horizon Oil Sands will utilize open pit mining methods. The site 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.
The Horizon Oil Sands execution strategy focuses on staged development of the asset. Phase 1 will see production of 110,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil (SCO) per day. Future phases target production of 232,000 - 250,000 barrels of SCO per day, followed in due course by an expansion to 500,000 barrels of SCO per day. As work continues on Phase 1, future expansions to the project are in the design and engineering stages.
What's in a barrel?
Our phased approach for the Horizon Oil Sands is highly structured and disciplined to ensure Canadian Natural meets investment targets. Canadian Natural extensively evaluated the marketplace and technology options before determining the product slate and process technology. Significant time and investment in Front End Engineering and Design for the construction of the facilities will result in cost certainty for the Project.
The Horizon Oil Sands open pit mining strategy will consist of mobile equipment and bitumen extraction facilities to mine and separate the raw bitumen from the oil sands. Canadian Natural will further upgrade the bitumen to a sweet synthetic crude oil using proven delayed coking and hydro-treating technologies. All of the upgrading facilities are located on the Horizon plant site to allow energy integration and sharing of common infrastructure.
Phase 1 of Canadian Natural's capital investment for Horizon was budgeted to be $6.8 billion including contingencies. This budget has been revised to reflect inflation and rising service costs and is now estimated to be 9.7 billion.
Extensive economic benefits will be generated for Alberta and Canada over Horizon's 40-year life span. During the primary construction period, Horizon will create direct employment of about 25,000 person years. When at full operating capacity and will employ approximately 2,400 people.
We welcome your questions or comments:
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Horizon Oil Sands Employment:
For general information on the oil sands industry in northeastern Alberta, please see:
Athabasca Oil Sands Developers www.oilsands.cc
Canadian Natural is an active participant and funding member of numerous regional working groups in northeastern Alberta. We are a member of the Athabasca Oil Sands Developers, also known as the Athabasca Regional Issues Working Group (RIWG). RIWG works to identify and resolve issues related to oil sands development in the region around Fort McMurray. The organization's members and staff provide a proactive process which promotes the responsible, sustainable development of resources within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Oil Sands Website Conversation Continues
Back in June of 2008, Canadian Natural joined with other oil sands developers in launching a communication initiative to encourage an open and public dialogue about oil sands issues. We wanted to gain a better understanding of public opinion about oil sands by listening to all interested people, including concerned Albertans and Canadians, environmental groups, and experts in various fields. A summary of what was heard so far is now available on the website as well as greatly expanded information on key oil sands issues.
More: http://www.canadasoilsands.ca/en/
Scanning the Horizon
