Imperial battles cold as Kearl startup nears
As Imperial Oil’s $10.9-billion Kearl oilsands project edges toward a startup that is just weeks away, the ignition of the second boiler is something of a milestone.
“That should happen later this week and then steam will be blown through the boilers and heat exchangers to complete the heat tracing,” said Imperial spokesman Pius Rolheiser.
“We have already started the mining operations and are stockpiling the bitumen ore near the ore preparation train,” he said.
Using Imperial’s new high temperature paraffinic froth treatment, a higher quality, marketable bitumen product can be sent to refineries without first being upgraded, reducing overall costs and carbon dioxide emissions.
“Starting a project like this, which will be around for 50 years or so, is not like flipping a wall switch. It is a sequential process that involves multiple systems that are integrated,” said Rolheiser.
“And while the process is working toward producing our first oil around year end, the priority is a safe startup — and that includes allowing for the abnormally cold weather right now which affects our workers and the equipment.”
Imperial’s chief executive Bruce March told the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers investment symposium in Toronto on Monday that the plant’s first oil may be slightly delayed.
“It is fair to say they’ve had a very early winter in the Fort McMurray area,” he
They’ve had a very early winter in the Fort McMurray area
PIUS ROLHEISER
said. “We’re fighting through that as we speak, but it’s really slowed down a lot of the commissioning and startup activities.”
Kearl will produce 110,000 barrels per day in its first phase, with an eventual goal of 345,000 bpd. Work on the engineering and other planning activities is already well advanced for the expansion phase.
The project is located 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray.
Kearl made headlines last year for problems with importing some of its prefabricated modules from South Korea via Montana.
“The project is on schedule and the delays in transporting those modules were mitigated through a re-sequencing of construction,” said Rolheiser.
Kearl will be the first new oilsands project since the opening of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.’s Horizon mine and upgrader plant in 2008. It will be the first without an upgrader on-site.
The project is named after a nearby lake, which the province named for Eldon Eastham Kearl, a Cardston tailor who became a pilot and won a Distinguished Flying Cross for twice bringing his severely damaged bomber back to England after raids over Germany. Flight Lieutenant Kearl was killed in action in 1944 when his RCAF Lancaster bomber was shot down.
Imperial will be placing a monument to Kearl outside the plant and naming the streets on the site after him and the five airmen who also died with him — Robert Adamson, John Mcmanus, Joseph Parise, Elmer Proud and Alfred Smith.
“We also plan to bring his brother Harold, who was also a Second World War pilot, up to the plant for the opening ceremonies which will take place when the weather is nicer, in May or June,” Rolheiser added.