The Syncrude Plant:
The Next Industry Mega-Project

In 1978, eleven years after the opening of the Great Canadian Oil Sands plant, the second oil sands mega-project in Alberta opened under Syncrude at Mildred Lake. Akin to GCOS, the plant was a large-scale surface mining and bitumen-refining operation. The Syncrude oil sands plant took five years to construct, during which time numerous hurdles had to be overcome, including design and engineering challenges, mechanical and technical difficulties, as well as financing, material and labour concerns.

The project was enormous: more than 450,000 tonnes of construction materials were trucked to Fort McMurray, along with numerous heavy equipment pieces. Laid out end-to-end, the pipe used in the facility would have spanned almost 500 km (311 mi.), the approximate distance between the plant site and Edmonton. And, ultimately, a 25 sq km (10 sq. mi.) surface mine was developed to extract oils sands for refining.

In a move that surprised most people, Syncrude’s leader Frank Spragins—for nearly two decades one of Canada’s most vocal and visible proponents of oil sands mega-projects—resigned his presidency the year before the plant was completed. He did, however, attend the opening ceremonies, where he received a standing ovation from an audience of seven hundred. A Syncrude publication described Spragins as “the man behind the mission and a visionary of the first

order.” It added that he died six weeks after the plant officially opened.

Innovation defined Syncrude’s creation. Oil sands technologies, practices and procedures generally improve over time, and Syncrude’s design was more efficient than the earlier Suncor plant. Syncrude claimed to be operating the world’s largest cokers at that time. By applying high temperature and pressure to the bitumen in its enormous cokers, Syncrude upgraded it into a lighter hydrocarbon liquid.

For the Syncrude consortium, the twenty years of research and planning, the five years of construction and the million man-hours involved to piece the project together resulted in a truly colossal state-of the-art oil sands facility. Within a year of opening, the plant had produced five million barrels of oil. In the following years, Syncrude continued to innovate. Giant computerized haulage trucks and separate shovels replaced the more costly bucketwheel-and-dragline method of removing overburden. Prior to the trucks and shovels, draglines—each with a bucket the size of a two-car garage—extracted the oil sands and placed it in long lines until a bucketwheel scooped it onto a conveyor system for transport to the plant. The use of trucks and shovels, which stand three storeys tall, became possible because of improvements in vehicular transport. Such technological advancements contributed to the company’s production of its one billionth barrel in 1998, five years ahead of schedule.