Northeastern Alberta
and $9 billion. Total’s Joslyn lease about 70 kilometres north of Fort McMurray will support mining activities for 20 years (2017-2037). T he de ve lopme nt , we st of t he Athabasca River and directly south of Canadian Natural Resources Limited’s Horizon mine, would increase Alberta’s approved minable project area by about seven per cent. Total’s plans call for final regulatory approvals in the fourth quarter of this year. Detailed engineering, procurement and construction would take place between the third quarter of 2011 and the third quarter of 2016. Commissioning and start-up would occur in the fourth quarter of 2016 with initial operation and ramp up in 2017. The project includes the design, construction and operation of a truck and shovel mining technology for the development of one mine pit to support a production rate of about 100,000 bbls per day of partially deasphalted bitumen. There also will be on-site energy generation infrastructure to generate electricity and steam.
Total also has ERCB approval for an upgrader near Fort Saskatchewan but will not be proceeding with it. Instead, the bitumen will be upgraded at the $11.6-billion Voyageur upgrader near Fort McMurray in a joint venture with Suncor Energ y Inc., which is acquiring 36.75 per cent of Total’s interest in
that it would not be in the public interest and would cause significant adverse effects. The group cited concerns about the adequacy of Total’s environmental assessment and questioned the adequacy and costs of reclamation and the methodologies used to determine the project’s effects on water quality.
The development, west of the Athabasca River and directly south of Canadian Natural Resources Limited’s Horizon mine, would increase Alberta’s approved minable project area by about seven per cent. Joslyn. Total, as operator, will retain a 38.25 per cent interest in Joslyn North, with Occidental Petroleum Corporation (15 per cent) and Inpex Corporation (10 per cent) holding the remaining 25 per cent. At t he hearing, t he Oilsands Environmental Coalition comprised of the Pembina Institute, the Fort McMurray Env ironmental A ssociation and the Toxics Watch Society of Alberta, urged that the project be denied on the grounds
To meet the requirements of the ERCB’s tailings Directive 74, Total plans to apply technologies such as thickened tailings, centrifuged tailings and sand spiking (adding fluid fine tailings to the coarse sand tailings stream to increase fines capture in the sand beach areas). The thickened tailings would be deposited in two dedicated disposal areas at annual deposition rates of four to six metres in one area and six to eight metres in a second area.
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