Fluor Corp has been awarded an engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction contract by Fort Hills Energy for the utilities scope of the Fort Hills oil sands mining project. The project is located about 90 km north of Fort McMurray in Alberta, Canada. Fluor booked the contract for $1.3 billion in the third quarter of 2014. “Fluor looks forward to delivering our integrated engineering, procurement, fabrication and construction solution to this significant project in Canada’s Athabasca oil sands,” said Jim Brittain, President of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals business for the Americas region. “Fluor will apply our unique modular design and execution approach using our proprietary 3rd Gen Modular ExecutionSM technology. We will fabricate a significant number of components offsite in order to deliver both schedule and capital efficiencies to Fort Hills.”
The Fort Hills project will be developed as an open-pit truck and shovel mine and is planned to yield 180,000 barrels of bitumen daily at full production. Fort Hills Energy is a partnership between Suncor Energy, Total E&P Canada and Teck Resources Ltd.
Fort Hills is considered one of the best remaining undeveloped oil sand mining leases, with an estimated contingent resource of 3.3 billion barrels of bitumen. The project is expected to produce first oil as early as the fourth quarter of 2017 and achieve 90% of its planned production capacity of 180,000 barrels per day (b/d) of bitumen within 12 months. Teck’s share of production is 36,000 b/d (13 million barrels per year) of bitumen. Construction is on budget and progressing substantially in accordance with the project schedule.
The project has been designed to optimize and protect land use by using the latest technology and approaches to tailings management and reclamation processes. Existing and future water quality standards and environmental regulations will be met or exceeded throughout the life of the project. The project will aim to return all disturbed lands to as close to a natural state as possible.
