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Syncrude Canada Ltd

Last edited by crocodyl on April 22, 2008 - 4:19pm
Company Snapshot: 

Syncrude Canada Ltd. is the world's largest producer of synthetic crude oil and the largest single source producer in Canada. It is located just outside Fort McMurray in the Athabasca Oil Sands, and supplies about 13% of Canada's oil requirements. The company is The company's air releases in 2005 were 129,741,321 Kg and it shipped approximately 95 million barrels of oil 2006.

The company is a joint venture involving a number of companies, including Canadian Oil Sands Limited, Imperial Oil, Petro-Canada, Nexen, ConocoPhillips, Mocal Energy and Murphy Oil. As a result, the consortium is not traded directly but can be traded under the individual partners: Canadian Oil Sands Trust, Petro Canada, Nexen, and so forth. The Canadian Oil Sands Trust, with the largest stake (and with Syncrude involvement as its only business), is publicly traded on the TSX under the symbol COS.UN.TO. The company is one of the largest holders of Alberta's oil sands leases (8) covering approximately 100,000 hectares.

Chief executive officer: 
Charles F. Ruigrok
Website: 
http://www.syncrude.ca/users/folder.asp
Corporate accountability
Accountability overview: 

Former CEO Eric Newell retired due to a triple budget project called UE-1 in 2005, and part-owner Imperial Oil sent Charles Ruigrok to take over. The project continued to experience cost overruns and schedule delays after the replacement of Newell, due in no small part to the tight labour market in Alberta and increases in costs of construction materials such as steel and concrete.

Environment and product safety: 

The company has two facilities that do most of the polluting, the Mildred Lake Plant Site and the Aurora North Mine Site. The oil sands industry in northern Alberta has had a major impact on the local boreal forests. In an effort to mitigate these damages, including waste piles and pools of tailings, Syncrude has introduced a herd of Bison onto former waste sites, which are now designated as wildlife reserves. Dredging of tar sands is extremely inefficient, yielding two tons of sand for just one barrel of oil.

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 heaviest greenhouse gas emitter in Canada and Syncrude as a whole is the sixth leading polluter in Canada. The plant has had multiple accidents, including an ammonia leak that sent five local residents to the hospital. Syncrude reduced CO2 emitted per barrel produced by 23% from 1990 to 2001, and plans for further reductions in the future, but they are expecting to extract 180 million barrels of oil from the Athabasca Oil Sands by 2015.

Social responsibility: 

Liz Moore, a citizen of Canada, made a photo essay of her trip to the oil sands, which were ordered removed from her website by Syncrude's legal department because she had signed a disclaimer before her tour.

Location(s)

Headquarters
200-9911 MacDonald Ave.
Fort McMurray, T9H 1S7
Canada
See map: Google Maps
Sources
Watchdogs and related campaigns: 
Pollution Watch
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