CO Boiler maintenance at Syncrude

(Fort McMurray, Alberta) – On Thursday, May 5th at about 1 a.m., the 8-1 CO (carbon monoxide) Boiler at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake site was taken off line for repairs.

It is anticipated that the unit will be operating again by the early morning of Friday, May 6th. As of this morning, there have been no off-site exceedances of Alberta Ambient Air Quality Guidelines attributed to this diverting event.

To allow the necessary repairs to be completed safely, gas from Coker 8-1 is being diverted from the boiler so that it goes to atmosphere through the Diverter Stack. It is a normal, routine practice to isolate a CO Boiler for mid-run maintenance. Syncrude’s Upgrading Operations have reduced coker feed rates and taken other measures to minimize the Diverter Stack emissions during the repair work. This reduction is having minimal impact on crude oil shipments.

Key regional stakeholders, including Alberta Environment, have been notified of this outage. Syncrude’s Industrial Hygiene and Environmental Department have increased their monitoring of air quality on site. Off-site air monitoring is via the Wood Buffalo Environmental Association’s air monitoring network that includes stations in close proximity to the Syncrude site, as well as ones in Fort McMurray and Fort McKay.

Syncrude’s CO Boilers are used to combust carbon monoxide and other coker off-gas, thereby recovering excess energy.

The Syncrude Project is a joint venture operated by Syncrude Canada Ltd. and owned by Canadian Oil Sands Limited, ConocoPhillips Oilsands Partnership II, Imperial Oil Resources, Mocal Energy Limited, Murphy Oil Company Ltd., Nexen Inc., and Petro-Canada Oil and Gas.

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