Technip has been awarded by Canadian Natural Resources Limited two contracts worth round C$1,070 million, for upgrading facilities and a hydrogen unit for the Horizon Oil Sands Project, located 75km northwest of Fort McMurray in Northern Alberta, Canada.
The first contract, worth approximately C$870 million, is for a diluent recovery unit (DRU) and a delayed coking unit (DCU). The DRU will recover the diluent used to liquefy heavy crude oil from bitumen sands and the DCU will upgrade the heavy crude oil into valuable liquid hydrocarbon products through coke extraction.
Technip’s engineering center based in Rome, Italy will provide detail engineering, procurement of equipment and materials, construction and pre-commissioning of the units, which are scheduled to be operational in 2008.
The second contract, worth around C$200 million, covers a hydrogen unit which will be the world’s second largest single train hydrogen plant. The unit, based on Technip’s proprietary technology, will produce high purity hydrogen, which will then be used to upgrade Athabasca Bitumen to sweet synthetic crude oil.
This lump sum turnkey project will be executed by Technip’s engineering center in Los Angeles, which will provide basic design, detailed engineering, procurement, construction and pre-commissioning. The plant is expected to be on-stream in 2008.