ALBERTA – Calgary-headquartered Shell Canada, operator of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP), announced on Aug. 20, 2012 that the operation near Fort McMurray has reached a milestone – 500 million barrels of synthetic crude – since production began in 2003.
"This is a tremendous achievement for Shell's oils sands business," said John Abbott, executive VP, heavy oil. "In less than a decade, we have built an oil sands mining and upgrading business capable of delivering over a quarter of a million barrels per day.
“As our business has grown, we have listened to the concerns of Canadians and the global community," he said. "Our vision is to be the leading company in environmental performance. We recognize that we must do a better job in reducing the environmental impacts of our oil sands operations if we are to compete in a world rightly asking more of the energy it uses."
This year the AOSP owners will make a decision about advancing the Quest carbon capture and storage project. Quest would see more than 1.0 million tonnes of CO2 /year captured from the Scotford Upgrader near Edmonton, AB, and stored more than 2.0 km underground. If approved, beginning in 2015, the Quest project will help reduce the carbon footprint of the AOSP.
The AOSP is a joint venture of Shell Canada (60%), Chevron Canada (20%) and Marathon Oil Corp. (20%). Details of the project are available at Shell.com.
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