Oil does not just come from undersea deposits. There are vast quantities of the heavy oil bitumen – over 1 trillion barrels, according to one estimate – in the so-called Athabasca oil sands of western Canada.

Crude oil from the sands currently accounts for more than one third of Canada’s domestic production, and this is expected to grow in the foreseeable future. Syncrude Canada Ltd., one of three companies currently producing crude oil from the Athabasca oil sands, is the largest single source producer in Canada, producing approximately 13% of Canada’s oil needs. The crude oil produced by Syncrude is referred to as Syncrude Sweet Blend (SSB).

The Syncrude operation started production in 1978 at a rate of 129,000 barrels of SSB per day. Since then a series of expansions has steadily increased production to the current level which averaged 241,000 barrels per day during the first six months of 2004.

Syncrude’s raw oil sand is mined from open pits using the largest earthmoving fleet in one place anywhere in the world. At present, the operation moves on average 1m tonnes of oil sand and the soil that covers it – called overburden – every day. It takes about 2t of oil sand to make one barrel of SSB, and since an equal amount of overburden is moved, it takes 4t of soil per barrel tk.

Now Syncrude is in the final stages of a C$7.0bn plant expansion to increase production to 360,000 barrels of per day by the end of 2005. It is one of the largest construction projects in North America. The expansion project of the so-called ‘upgrader’ facility that converts bitumen to synthetic crude at the original Mildred Lake pit has employed up to 180 cranes at the peak of construction.

The main lifting and rigging contracts are being handled by Sterling Crane of Edmonton and Mammoet Northern Alliance, a section of the worldwide Mammoet organization. These companies employ many cranes from their own fleets and, for special tasks or peak times, supplement them with rented units from local suppliers. They each have their own offices and laydown areas within the site where cranes are erected and dismantled, and booms and parts are stored.

All types of cranes are employed. Sterling Crane’s fleet numbered some 120 units at the peak of construction. These included the company’s flagship 1,200t Demag CC8800 crawler crane, 209t Manitowoc 888 and 270t Manitowoc 2250, a couple of smaller American cranes and a fleet of Demag ATs. Mammoet came in with their one-and-only 1,200t capacity Gottwald RG912 crawler, plus 800t Terex-Demag CC4800, 600t Terex-Demag CC2800, 800t Liebherr LR1800, and another 20 or so cranes including 10 in the 200t–250t range. The big Gottwald crawler sits on its own platform in the centre of the plant and will be dismantled where it stands before it can be moved out.

In addition to the contractors’ cranes, Syncrude employs a fleet of some 25 mobile and crawler cranes stationed permanently on site. These include three Manitowocs (175t 4100W and 4000W), ten Liebherr telescopics (including a 500t LTM1500 and LTM1080, LTM1100/2, and LTM1160), and a dozen or so Grove rough terrains from 36t to 90t capacity. They handle lifting duties, not only within the plant site, but also across the entire mining area. They assist with major shovel and dragline repairs or rebuilds, lift heavy units such as dragline buckets onto the site’s fleet of lowboys, work on pipeline projects and many other construction projects, always required at such a large site.

What makes the Mildred Lake expansion project so complicated (and more costly than a normal plant expansion) is the fact that the expansion is taking place in and around the existing plant while it is in full production. Although the site area is large, the massive scope of the project and number of personnel, up to 6,000 workers at peak times, and the large amount of mobile and static equipment in use, result in a condensed and crowded working area.

Still, the company claims an incident rate well below the national average for construction.

The Mildred Lake expansion is on target for completion by mid 2006.