Canadian Oil Sands Trust » The Syncrude Asset

At a Glance

The Syncrude Project is a joint venture undertaking among AEC Oil Sands Limited Partnership, now Canadian Oil Sands Limited Partnership (5%); Canadian Oil Sands Limited (31.74%); Conoco Phillips Oilsands Partnership II (9.03%); Imperial Oil Resources (25%); Mocal Energy Limited (5%); Murphy Oil Company Ltd. (5%); Nexen Inc. (7.23%); and Petro-Canada (12%).
Syncrude is the world's largest producer of crude oil from oil sands and the largest single source producer in Canada, currently supplying 13 percent of the nation's petroleum requirements.
The Syncrude Project is operated and administered by Syncrude Canada Ltd. on behalf of the participants.
The Syncrude consortium was formed in 1964 with the official opening of the project and the first barrel shipped in 1978.
Located near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Syncrude operates large oil sands mines, a utilities plant, bitumen extraction plants and an upgrading complex that processes bitumen into a light sweet crude oil.
The crude oil produced by Syncrude is referred to as Syncrude Sweet Blend® ("SSB"), which is a high quality, light sweet crude oil with no residual bottoms and with the lowest sulphur content of any crude in North America. As part of the Stage 3 expansion, Syncrude will further enhance the quality of its production to a new level that will be referred to as Syncrude Sweet Premium, or "SSP".
Syncrude is the largest holder of Alberta's mineable oil sands leases with eight leases covering 102,160 hectares.
Syncrude has proven reserves of 3.1 billion barrels of SSB plus additional undeveloped resource of 5.1 billion barrels of SSB. The proven, developed reserves represent more than a 35-year lifespan using today's infrastructure with the potential to extend reserve life beyond the year 2050 as the leases are developed.
Syncrude is in the midst of a large expansion program designed to more than double production by 2015. Stage 3 of the program is currently underway at an expected capital cost of Cdn $5.7 billion, and is anticipated to result in productive capacity expanding from today's level of 90 million barrels per year to approximately 128 million barrels per year in 2005.
In 2002, Syncrude shipped 83.8 million barrels of SSB, equivalent to 13 percent of Canada's petroleum requirements.
Syncrude is a leader in technological innovation of oil sands recovery and has pioneered many of the technologies used throughout the oil sands industry today, including low energy extraction and hydrotransport. These innovations have reduced energy requirements, leading to lower operating costs and emissions.
Syncrude is fully committed to excellence in environment, health and safety performance in the conduct of its business and in support of a safe, reliable and profitable operation. From 1990 to 2008, Syncrude plans to have reduced CO2 emissions by about 30 per cent per barrel and SO2 emissions by 70 per cent per barrel.
Syncrude is recognized as one of Canada's top 100 employers with operations that provide jobs for 14,000 people directly and indirectly across Canada.