The Future of the Canadian Oil Stands: Engineering and Project Management Advances

This paper discusses production technology and project management developments in the Canadian oil sands industry, in the context of AMEC's experience as a consultant and EPCM service provider to lease holders, developers and operators. Mineable and in situ oil sands developments are described, along with methods for and challenges of various production types of in situ, including Cold Flow, Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS), Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), Toe to Heel Air Injection (THAI), and VAPEX. Effective project management and supporting systems are critical to achieve cost and schedule targets on large, complex projects performed by AMEC. Workfront planning is essential to achieve optimum construction execution and a best value project. Construction Work Packages (CWPs) divide the work into discrete pieces and the Construction Work Execution Plan influences scheduling of engineering and procurement deliverables. Integration of the schedules and linking to the required on site (ROS) dates of the CWP scopes minimizes workfront duration requirements, allowing progressive completion of systems. AMEC's Engineering Data Warehouse (EDW) works with centrally-hosted, intelligent engineering design tools to assist in achieving tight cost and schedule targets. The EDW ensures all information related to a given piece of equipment is consistent across all systems, supporting quality assurance of engineering data between AMEC, its sub-contractors and supervised contractors. Once verified and consolidated, the information becomes part of a Master Tag Register (MTR), improving AMEC's ability to meet contractual turnover requirements for data quality, completeness and accuracy. Health, safety, security and environmental (HSSE) systems are proactively developed and AMEC's progressive improvement in safety performance over the years is demonstrated. The improvement is due in part to the company's Beyond Zero program, designed to achieve sustainable, world-class HSSE performance.