UPDATE 1-Syncrude plans maintenance work on coker units
Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:26am IST
CALGARY, Alberta, April 28, 2008 (Reuters) – Syncrude Canada Ltd, the biggest oil sands producer, has shut one of its cokers for 45 days for maintenance, and another of the units is scheduled to be worked on in the third quarter, its largest shareholder said on Monday.
Canadian Oil Sands Trust (COS), which owns 37 percent of the Syncrude joint venture, said Coker 8-1, a key unit in an upgrading complex that converts tar-like bitumen into refinery-ready synthetic crude, will be closed in the current quarter but did not specify when the shutdown would begin.
Canadian Oil Sands Chief Executive Marcel Coutu said at the trust’s annual meeting that the work was under way.
A maintenance turnaround of Coker 8-3, as well as associated maintenance on other units, will go ahead in the third quarter, but the trust gave not further details.
Each of the coker units produces about 100,000 barrels a day, according to Syncrude spokesman Alain Moore.
Syncrude has the capacity to produce 375,000 barrels of synthetic crude a day but unplanned shutdowns because of cold weather cut output to 266,800 barrels a day during the first quarter, the trust said.
Canadian Oil Sands’ partners in Syncrude include Imperial Oil Ltd. (IMO), Petro-Canada (PCA), ConocoPhillips (COP), Nexen Inc. (NXY), Nippon Oil Corp. unit Mocal Energy Ltd., and Murphy Oil Corp. (MUR).
($1=$1.01 Canadian) (Reporting by Scott Haggett and Jeffrey Jones; editing by Rob Wilson)
