Horizon Project

The oil sands of Alberta contain over 300 billion barrels of oil reserves. Canadian Natural Resources Limited is involved in the extraction of these reserves utilizing both open pit mining and in-situ techniques.

The Horizon Oil Sands Project will utilize open pit mining methods.  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.

The Horizon Project execution strategy focuses on staged development of the asset. Phase 1 start-up is scheduled for the third quarter of 2008 which will see production of 110,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil (SCO) per day. Future phases will see 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 Project 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 Project 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 Project 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 between $7.1 and $7.6 billion (an increase of 5 to 12%).

Extensive economic benefits will be generated for Alberta and Canada over the Project's 40-year life span. During the primary construction period, Horizon will create direct employment of about 25,000 person years and is expected to employ roughly 7,500 workers during peak construction in 2007. At full operating capacity, the Project will employ approximately 2,400 people.

We welcome your questions or comments:

Horizon Oil Sands Project Employment:

Horizon Oil Sands Project Jobs

Construction Jobs

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.