Suncor's outage could make it miss 2002 oil sands production goal

April 1, 2002
Last week's temporary outage at Suncor Energy Inc.'s oil sands facility in northern Alberta could prevent the company from reaching its 2002 production target. Partial production resumed Mar. 25 from the Suncor oil sands plant following a Mar. 20 power outage that interrupted the plant's operations for about an hour, Suncor reported.

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Apr. 1 -- Last week's temporary outage at Suncor Energy Inc.'s oil sands facility in northern Alberta could prevent the company from reaching its 2002 production target.

Partial production resumed Mar. 25 from Suncor Energy Inc.'s oil sands facility in northern Alberta following a Mar. 20 power outage that interrupted the plant's operations for about an hour, Suncor reported.

The power outage "could impact" the company's goal of reaching target production for 2002, Suncor said. Immediately following the outage, Suncor said the impact on the plant's production was expected to be "minimal." Production was "ramped up quickly" to 180,000 b/d of oil following the return of power to the plant.

In addition, "Maintenance work previously scheduled to occur in April was brought forward to take advantage of the downtime," Suncor stated.

Prior to the incident, Suncor had anticipated first quarter production from the plant to reach 190,000-200,000 b/d of oil.

The firm's production target for 2002 remains 210,000 b/d of oil, it said. The company reported increased flaring and emissions from the plant while it works to restore production to full rates.