Contract let for Alberta refinery

Sept. 23, 2014
North West Redwater Partnership (NWR) has let a contract to a division of Emerson, St. Louis, Mo., to provide automation services and technology for the first phase of NWR’s greenfield bitumen refinery project in Sturgeon County, about 45 km northeast of Edmonton, Alta.

North West Redwater Partnership (NWR) has let a contract to a division of Emerson, St. Louis, Mo., to provide automation services and technology for the first phase of NWR’s greenfield bitumen refinery project in Sturgeon County, about 45 km northeast of Edmonton, Alta. (OGJ Online, Jan. 28, 2010).

As the main automation contractor, Emerson Process Management will provide engineering, configuration, start-up, training, commissioning support, and other services related to the control and operations at the refinery, Emerson said.

The contract includes delivery of Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system and DeltaV safety instrumented system, both of which include Emerson’s Electronic Marshalling technology with characterization modules designed to simply connections between the control system and other instruments throughout the plant, according to the service company.

Emerson also will deliver its Rosemount transmitters, Fisher control valves, and Micro Motion flowmeters to carry out essential measurement and control functions, the company said.

Designed to capture carbon dioxide emissions and sell them to traditional oil extraction operations for injection into wells under pressure to enhance production, the Sturgeon refinery will use technologies aimed at cleaner processing, including elimination of petroleum coke, a waste product typical of traditional refining, according to Emerson.

Once completed, Phase 1 of the $8.5 billion project will have a processing capacity 50,000 b/d and will capture 1.2 million tonnes/year of carbon dioxide to be sold for use in enhanced oil recovery. Two further phases with capacities of 50,000 b/d each also are planned for the refinery (OGJ Online, Mar. 11, 2014).

Following commissioning of all three phases, the Sturgeon refinery will operate at a capacity of 150,000 b/d to produce diesel, diluent, and other bitumen products for both Canadian and global markets.

NWR, a joint venture of North West Upgrading Inc. and Canadian Natural Upgrading Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., previously said it plans to commission commercial operations for Phase 1 in September 2017 (OGJ Online, Mar. 3, 2014).