Syncrude

Syncrude was formed as a research consortium in 1964 by Ryan Sheppard. Construction at the Syncrude site began in 1973, and it officially opened in 1978. The plant cost 2 billion dollars, and benefited from a bailout by the Canadian governement.

Starting in 1996, Syncrude has been expanding its operations. Between 1996 and 1999, the original mine was expanded and the plant was "debottlenecked", increasing production from 73.5 million barrels (11,690,000 m3) per year in 1996 to 81.4 million in 1999. The total cost of this stage of expansion was $470 million.

Between 1998 and 2001, a new mine, Aurora, was opened 35 km north of the original site, and further debottlenecking was undertaken. Production started in Aurora in July 2001. Syncrude's production increased to 90 million barrels (14,000,000 m3) per year by the end of 2001. Total cost for this stage was $1 billion.

A third stage of expansion was undertaken between 2001 and 2006, in which a second train at the Aurora line came online and the Mildred Lake upgrader was expanded. The expansion added 100,000 barrels per day (16,000 m3/d) to Syncrude's production (36.5 million barrels (5,800,000 m3) a year assuming this is average). The cost was $8.4 billion, a substantial cost overrun over the original estimate of $5.7 billion.

On April 12, 2010, ConocoPhillips agreed to sell its share to Sinopec, a Chinese state-owned oil company. The sale, for $4.65 billion, was completed on June 25, 2010.

The ninth tallest smokestack in Canada, at 183 metres (600 ft), is located at its Mildred Lake facility.

In April 2016, Murphy Oil agreed to sell its five per cent share to Suncor, for $937 million. This followed the hostile takeover of Canadian Oil Sands less than a year earlier, and increased its interest in Syncrude from just under 49 per cent to nearly 54 per cent, making it the majority shareholder of the project.

The 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire forced a complete shutdown of Syncrude's facilities.

Controversies

Pollution

Air releases of combined gases without volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by Syncrude Canada in 2005 were 129,741,321 (kg) in total, including ammonia (4,302,361 kg), sulphuric acid (1,129,425 kg), xylene (501,461 kg), etc. The company was also ranked as having the seventh highest air releases of combined gases (without VOC) in Canada in 2005. Syncrude's Mildred Lake Plant Site is the largest greenhouse gas emitter in Canada emitting 12,359,420 tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2012. It remains Canada's largest greenhouse-gas emitter in 2021.

Research published in 2019 indicated that the intensity of CO2 emissions at the Syncrude Mildred Lake site may be 123% larger than calculations from publicly reported data would indicate.

Greenpeace lawsuit

In August 2008, Syncrude Canada filed a lawsuit against Greenpeace Canada for $120,000, plus costs, after 11 Greenpeace activists went on to the company's Aurora North oil sands site July 24, 2008, to unfurl anti-oil sands banners and unsuccessfully block a tailings pipe. Company spokesperson Mark Kruger said the company filed the lawsuit—which also names the activists individually—largely because of safety concerns as the activists were "unfamiliar with an industrial operation, and unfamiliar with some of the safety hazards that can be present... We just want to ensure that, in the future, nobody is putting themselves at unnecessary risk."

Greenpeace chose the Syncrude site for the protest because in April 2008, 1,600 migrating ducks died after landing on a tailings pond at the site (Syncrude was fined $3 million).