Land Reclamation

Syncrude leads the industry with about 22 per cent of our land now reclaimed. To date, we’ve reclaimed over 4,600 hectares and planted 4.5 million seedlings.

 

	2007 Target	2006 Actual	2006 Target	2005	2004	2003	2002
Land Disturbed (cumulative hectares)	20,733	19,973	19,627	19,160	18,653	18,335	17,653
Land Reclaimed (cumulative hectares)	4,724	4,624	4,639	4,357	4,056	3,402	3,215
Net Land Disturbed (cumulative hectares)	16,009	15,349	14,907	14,800	14,598	14,933	14,438
Seedlings Planted (annual)	519,700	506,170	571,000	659,400	467,000	315,000	233,028
Seedlings Planted (cumulative)	5,050,054	4,530,354	4,595,184	4,024,184	3,364,784	2,897,784	2,582,784

Reclamation progress – Syncrude reclaimed a total of 312 hectares of mining land in 2006 though changes to mining activity necessitated the re-disturbance of 45 hectares that had been previously reclaimed, resulting in a net gain of 267 hectares. Almost half of the reclamation in 2006 was located at the Aurora site, which has been an operating mine for only six years. In total, $30.5 million was spent on reclamation activities during the year.

 

Syncrude aims to directly place material from a disturbed area to a reclamation site wherever possible; in fact, two million banked cubic metres (bcm) of reclamation material were so placed in 2006, while a further 1.4 million bcm were stockpiled. Beyond this, an existing stockpile of 869,000 bcm was also placed on reclamation sites.

 

Reclamation in 2007 is anticipated to be about 100 hectares, less than previous years due to ongoing construction that will restrict the amount of land available for permanent reclamation. Stockpiling of reclamation material will continue to support an enhanced level of reclamation in future years.

 

Encouraging Public Stewardship – On Labour Day, more than 200 employees, contractors, and their families participated in Syncrude’s second annual tree planting day. The event, which included a tour of Syncrude’s various reclamation sites, showcased Syncrude’s commitment to the environment and progress on reclamation, and was also aimed at developing a more informed stakeholder constituency.

 

Syncrude’s lead role in coordinating the second annual Energy in Action day, in September, helped beautify Good Shepherd and Beaconhill School Park by involving students in the planting of 60 shrubs on the grounds. The program, which is an initiative of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, is designed to help young people learn about reclamation and sustainable resource development.

 

Stacked Tailings Pilot Project – A new tailings management technology that has been tested by Syncrude in a pilot project could result in significant environmental benefits. Stacked Tailings is a promising technique that involves a combination of cyclone stacking and thickening of oil sands tailings. The technique offers potential for significant energy conservation through the recycle of warm water and also for earlier land reclamation.

 

Through this process, the tailings—sand, silt, clay and water—left over after bitumen has been extracted from oil sand are pumped to a mobile cyclone stacker that separates the tailings into two streams. The coarse dry fraction is deposited as a selfsupporting mound of sand that can be used as a solid base for reclamation material. The other stream, primarily a suspension of silt, clay and water, is pumped to a thickener tank and flocculated, causing the fine solids to settle so they too can be used as reclamation material. The remaining layer of warm water is then recycled back to the bitumen extraction process.

 

While the technology was originally developed for use in the mineral sands industry, Syncrude is the first company in the oil sands to pursue it. Pilot project results are now being assessed.

 

Sulphur Storage – Syncrude produces and stores a significant amount of elemental sulphur, a by-product of oil sands processing, at its plant site. The sulphur is stored, as economic considerations do not make it a viable source of supply to established markets. In addition to the current practice of above-ground blocking and storage, Syncrude is now also researching the feasibility of soil capped storage, and part of the total $1.9 million spent on reclamation research in 2006 was dedicated to this purpose. Monitoring of the soil capped sulphur blocks will continue until the third quarter of 2007, after which time the effectiveness of the storage strategy will be assessed. Some of the sulphur produced at Syncrude is now also being processed on-site into agricultural fertilizer under an agreement with a third party.

 

Restoring Land with Nature’s Gifts – Syncrude has partnered with the University of Alberta to evaluate the best way of using a natural material known as LFH (leaf litter, fibric and humic) in our reclamation efforts. Syncrude salvages LFH, which is the top layer of the forest floor, when clearing land for development. The material contains seeds, roots, micro-organisms, nutrients and decaying tree branches that are vital to the health of the forest ecosystem and which also help re-establish native plant species. Syncrude first established a test plot using white spruce and aspen LFH on existing tailings sand reclamation in 1998 and found that it was very effective helping re-establish native species. The partnership with the University of Alberta will investigate ways to speed up effective reclamation using LFH. Toward this goal, several additional test areas have been established around the Syncrude site.