North West Upgrading Moves Forward with $2 Billion Upgrader in Alberta

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). North West Upgrading, Incorporated (Calgary, Alberta) is moving forward with plans to construct a new 150,000-barrel per day upgrader to be built in three separate phases of 50,000 barrels per day each. The company expects regulatory approval in early 2007 and the start-up of phase I in early 2010. The second and third phases are expected to meet future demand with start-up expected in 2013 and 2016, respectively. The upgrader, when complete, will process sour bitumen and convert it to a light, sweet synthetic crude oil to serve the U.S., Canadian, and international markets.

The process of upgrading transforms oil sands bitumen into synthetic crude oil that can later be refined into additional products. The four main steps of conventional upgrading are thermal conversion, catalytic conversion, distillation, and hydrotreating. North West’s upgrader for phase I will include a 50,000-barrel per day crude and vacuum processing units, a 31,750-barrel per day residual hydrocracker, utilizing UOP Unionfining technology, a 27,200-barrel per day vacuum gas oil hydrocracker, utilizing UOP Unicracking technology, a 38,000-barrel per day gas oil hydrotreater, a 14,000-barrel per day diluent recovery unit, a 120 million standard cubic feet per day gasification unit, a 362-ton per day sulfur recovery unit, utilizing Jacobs SUPERCLAUS & Shell Liquid Sulfur Degassing Technologies, and other associated processing units.

North West has chosen SNC-Lavalin (Calgary, Alberta) as the overall project management contractor. SNC will perform engineering, procurement, and construction services for the crude & vacuum unit, gas oil hydrotreater, and diluent recovery unit.

North West has awarded Lurgi (Frankfort, Germany) to perform preliminary design for the gasification unit utilizing their proprietary multi-purpose and rectisol gas sweetening processes. In addition, North West will choose an engineering and construction firm in early 2007 for the remaining units.

Industrial Info is currently tracking 78 active oil sand upgrader projects in Western Canada that are under construction and are currently planned with a total capital expenditure of an estimated $55 billion to start-up through 2016. The companies included besides North West Upgrading are: BA Energy, Canadian Natural Resources, Limited; MEG Energy Corporation; North American Oil Sands Corporation; Opti Canada, Incorporated; Peace River Oil, Incorporated; Petro-Canada, Incorporated; Shell Canada, Limited; Suncor Energy, Incorporated; Syncrude Canada, Limited; Synenco Energy, Incorporated and Total S A.

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