Suncor to spend $3 billion on building new oil sands recovery facilities

Canadian energy company Suncor has submitted plans for approval of another major expansion of its oil sands recovery in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
In early April the company announced plans to spend $1.5 billion on new upgrading facilities, and another $1.5 billion on expanding the Firebag in-situ oil sands to feed the upgrader.
Plans for the upgrader expansion include constructing a pair of coke drums and a sulphur recovery plant. The company submitted the plans to regulators early in April and plans to start construction in 2004. The project will employ 2,800 people.
Plans for a four-stage expansion of the Firebag oil sands were approved in 2001 and construction of the first stage is almost 80% complete. Details of further for developments are due early next year.
Engineering companies currently employed by Suncor on oil sands projects include Jacobs Engineering and Bantrel. To date engineers for the new expansion have not been announced.
The Fort McMurray additions are expected to increase the company’s production from 225,000 barrels per day to 330,000 barrels per day by late 2007. Rick George, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said that they intend to become “the single largest supplier of oil sands products and the lowest cost oil producer in North America.”