REUTERS / Syncrude Canada Ltd. Oil Output To Be Halved During Outage
CALGARY, July 24 (Reuters) - Syncrude Canada Ltd. said on Friday its synthetic oil output would be cut in half during a 25-day outage of a processing unit that began today.
Fort McMurray, Alberta-based Syncrude, the world's largest producer of synthetic crude oil, said its production would be reduced to 120,000 barrels a day while a coking unit out of service for repairs.
The company said it tried over the last several days to repair the unit after it encountered "coke circulation problems." Efforts proved unsuccessful, however, and Syncrude brought the unit down, it said.
Syncrude produces light, sweet crude oil by mining oil sands, extracting tar-like bitumen from the sand and upgrading it. Its production is equal to about 12 percent of Canadian crude oil demand.
The coking unit takes in heated bitumen from Syncrude's extraction plant. High temperatures in the coker's reactor cause the bitumen to "crack""into lighter products such as naphtha and gas oils, which are used to make synthetic crude.
The finished product is processed by refineries in the Edmonton, Alberta area as well as the U.S. Midwest and southern Ontario.
Syncrude said the outage, during which up to 150 contract staff will make repairs, could cut Syncrude's its production by 2.5 million barrels, or more than three percent of its projected 1998 output.
Syncrude is a joint venture owned by nine energy companies.
|
