By the OGJ Online Staff
HOUSTON, June 22 -- PanCanadian Petroleum Ltd. said Friday it will move crude from its Christina Lake oil sands project in northern Alberta through the Enbridge Ltd. pipeline system.
Beginning in late 2002, PanCanadian will ship up to 10,000 b/d of blended bitumen from the first phase of its Christina Lake thermal project 170 km south of Fort McMurray, Alta., to Enbridge's Kirby Lake pipeline terminal. The crude will be blended with diluent and moved on Enbridge's Athabasca Pipeline, connecting with the Enbridge mainline at Hardisty, Alta.
Enbridge will build two 26-km laterals to Christina Lake, and tankage, blending, and pumping facilities. Costs will be $35 million for the first phase.
Richard Bird, an Enbridge vice-president, said, "PanCanadian's Christina Lake project is one of several oil sands developments which are anticipated to come on stream over the next several years, increasing throughput on both our Athabasca Pipeline and the mainline system which it feeds.
"Our arrangement with PanCanadian contemplates that Christina Lake may expand in two additional phases requiring further investment by Enbridge and providing still higher throughput on the Athabasca pipeline."
He said PanCanadian will be able to ship up to 115,000 b/d of Christina Lake heavy blend on the pipeline, in addition to the 60,000 b/d committed to Petro-Canada's MacKay River project last fall and the initial 170,000 b/d contracted to Suncor Ltd. in 1998 -- the original impetus for construction of the line.
The 30-in. Athabasca Pipeline began operations in April 1999. The 570,000-b/d line is the only liquids pipeline linking the Athabasca and Cold Lake oil sands deposits with the Hardisty pipeline hub.
PanCanadian said the Christina Lake reservoir contains 2-3 billion bbl of oil in place. The $400-million project received permits from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board and Alberta Environment in 2000 and will start production in 2002.
PanCanadian operates the project and has a 100% working interest.
The project will use steam assisted gravity drainage, which involves drilling two horizontal wells in parallel, with the producing well 5 m below the steam injection well. The steam lowers the viscosity of the oil, allowing it to flow into the production well.