Kearl includes oil sands mining and bitumen extraction/treating facilities as well as connections to a pipeline system to transport the product to market. The oil sands mine will use the latest equipment (large scale electrical and hydraulic shovels, trucks and double roll crushers) to provide oil sands ore to the processing facilities.
Bitumen Extraction
The ore that is mined and crushed will be mixed with water for slurrying, transported and conditioned in a pipeline, and fed into a bitumen extraction facility. There, the bitumen will be separated as “froth” – a mixture of bitumen, water and fine solids. The froth will be further treated in a froth treatment plant to produce bitumen suitable for sale.
Tailings are a mixture of sand, fine clay and water. They are a by-product of the water-based
bitumen-extraction process. Kearl will have an external tailings area in the northeast portion of the lease for initial storage.
A large extraction vessel will be used to separate
the mixture of bitumen, water and solids.
Bitumen Upgrading and Shipping
Development plans do not include any on-site upgrading facilities. To reduce the bitumen’s viscosity to enable it to be shipped by pipeline, it will be blended with diluent, typically sourced from natural gas condensates (pentane and heavier). The product will be shipped to market through third party pipeline systems.
Imperial and ExxonMobil own refinery infrastructure in both Canada and the United States that could potentially receive diluted bitumen to make a variety of refined products. Production would also be sold to third party refiners.
Other Infrastructure
In addition to mining, Kearl will also include development of related infrastructure. This includes a river water intake and water pipeline (to allow approved water volumes to be withdrawn from the Athabasca River), water storage, pipelines, power lines and roads.
Copyright 2006. Imperial Oil Limited. All rights reserved.
