Some of the retired bucketwheel reclaimers, draglines and massive shovels used to mine the Athabasca oil sands about 20 miles north of Fort McMurray are permanently parked by the road in sight of the Syncrude plant. Visitors may walk up close. Syncrude, one of Canada's big Athabasca oil sands mining companies, has provided a small shelter and signs about tar sands mining and land reclamation.
Tar Sands or Oil Sands Mining is Based on Coal Mining Technology
The Athabasca oil sands deposits near Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada contain some of the world's largest known petroleum reserves. The Oil Sands Discovery Centre in Fort McMurray shows the whole process of mining the oil-bearing sand and refining it to produce synthetic crude oil.
Although the best-known end product of oil sands mining is liquid oil, the oil in oil sands begins as bitumen, thick gooey black tar-like stuff that binds the sand and other particles together. To the non-scientist, it looks like someone poured oil from a can onto a beach, and mixed in a little tar here and there to make it more solid. It's actually more complex than this chemically, and it took a long time to invent an efficient way of extracting oil from oil sand.
To geologists and miners, the job starts as a mining project. The big open-pit oil sands mines were planned using knowledge from the field of coal mining, and operate using the same kinds of big trucks and diggers as coal mines use. Over the years, the companies have designed more specialized equipment and experimented with different mining techniques, but oil sands mines still look like big open pit coal mines.
Bucketwheel Reclaimers, Draglines, Trucks and Shovels
Since the beginning of commercial oil sands operations in the 1960s by Suncor (originally called Great Canadian Oil Sands) and the 1970s by Syncrude, one big change in mining methods has been the switch to trucks and shovels instead of bucketwheels and draglines.
Both companies used bucketwheel reclaimers, or simply bucketwheels, and conveyor belts earlier on. The bucketwheel is like a Ferris wheel with excavator shovels instead of seats. It scoops up the oil sand and dumps it onto a conveyor belt, which carries the sand to the plant for processing.
Syncrude has also used giant draglines - like huge shovels on long cables - to dig the sand and pile it in windrows from which the bucketwheels could load the conveyor belts.
The favoured mining method now is to use trucks and shovels, giant trucks and immense shovels, which the companies have found to be more efficient. One problem with relying too much on the bucketwheels, draglines and conveyor belts is that if one thing breaks down, the whole operation can be forced to a halt. Having many trucks and shovels is a more flexible way to operate.
See the Giants of Mining, and Other Things to Do in Fort McMurray
The main highway from Fort McMurray to the Syncrude site, Highway 63, passes right by the Giants of Mining, which is close to the main Syncrude plant site.
Fort McMurray is in northeastern Alberta, approximately 450 km northeast of Edmonton, the capital city of Alberta. There are regular flights from Edmonton (about 1 hour) and Calgary, Alberta (about 80 minutes) and other centres.
Visitors to Fort McMurray can tour to see the Northern Lights, and enjoy the natural setting of the place. There are some comfortable and delicious places to eat.
Contact Fort McMurray Tourism (1-800-565-3947) for local information, and Travel Alberta (1-800- ALBERTA) for Northern Alberta travel tips. Both organizations provided assistance to the writer.
Jill Browne - Living near the Rocky Mountains in beautiful Calgary, Alberta, Canada, gives Jill Browne many great opportunities to enjoy the outdoors. ...
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