Emerson lands Canada oil-sands contract

Austin, Texas – Emerson Process Management has won a contract to digitally automate the first phase of its C$10.3-billion (£5.0-billion) Horizon Oil Sands Project, located 75 miles northwest of Fort McMurray, Alberta.

The contract with Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) of Calgary, Alberta — will see Emerson lead the automation of facilities for recovering and upgrading bitumen into sweetened synthetic crude oil, said a 14 June Emerson announcement.

Emerson project members will join our Automation Integration Team to ensure an efficient integration of our 10 segregated process areas into a single control room, said Bob Wing, CNRL project coordinator.

CNRL chose Emerson and its PlantWeb digital plant architecture because of its “experience in oil sands projects and proven global engineering expertise,” according to Wing —commenting in the Emerson statement.

The contract is for the first phase of the Horizon project, under which CNRL plans to produce 110,000 barrels per day of synthetic crude oil from H2, 2008. Production is ultimately expected to reach 232,000 barrels per day by 2012.

According to Emerson, it will develop specifications for the CNRL project that will be used by 12 different EPCs the Horizon project. The specifications, it said, will guide engineering design, hardware design/layout, and configuration and connection of the digital automation systems within PlantWeb

Emerson bills PlantWeb as “a digital approach to integrating plant-wide operations for optimum process control, operational excellence, and management information.” The system encompasses a network of intelligent transmitters, analysers, valves, and equipment monitors.