By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, July 9 -- Fort Hills Energy LP has awarded Technip a contract covering front-end engineering design, detailed engineering, procurement, construction, and project management for the Fort Hills Oil Sands heavy oil upgrader near Edmonton, Alta.
The project, now in the development planning stage, includes a diluent recovery unit (DRU), a delayed coking unit (DCU), and related facilities. The upgrader is expected to produce as much as 280,000 b/d of synthetic crude when all phases are complete in 2015 (OGJ Online, June 29, 2007).
The DRU will recover the solvent from the diluted bitumen pipelined from the Fort Hills mine site to the upgrader. The DCU will upgrade the heavy bitumen into lighter hydrocarbons, which will be further processed into synthetic oil and then into products such as gasoline and diesel.
Technip's operations and engineering center in Rome will execute the contract, beginning with the confirmation of the existing design basis memorandum and associated cost estimate.
Fort Hills Energy LP consists of project operator Petro-Canada Oil Sands Inc. 55%, UTS Energy Corp. 30%, and Teck Cominco Ltd. 15%.
