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Nexen Long Lake upgrader out of service for unplanned maintenance |
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Written by REM Staff
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Calgary-based Nexen Inc. is carrying out unplanned maintenance on the upgrader at its Long Lake oil sands project in northern Alberta after problems arose earlier in August 2010, a spokesman told The Calgary Herald.
In the report, the company said it expects to have the upgrader, which converts tar-like bitumen stripped from the oil sands into refinery-ready synthetic crude, back in service "within a week or two."
"Now we're basically just producing bitumen," said Tim Chatten, spokesman for the company, told the newspaper.
Located 40 kilometers southeast of Fort McMurray in the Athabasca oil sands, Long Lake Phase 1 is the fourth integrated oil sands project in Canada and the first to combine Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage with an upgrader that uses proprietary OrCrude technology as well as gasification. This energy efficient process yields a Premium Synthetic Crude oil while substantially decreasing the use of costly natural gas required in other oil sands applications.
Nexen's Long Lake project uses thermal methods to produce bitumen, pumping steam into the ground to liquefy the bitumen so it can flow to the surface.
www.nexeninc.com
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