In June Syncrude Canada Ltd. approved the capital expenditure of $900 million to develop the Aurora Mine and proceed with debottlenecking work in Syncrude's crude oil upgrader plant. The Aurora Mine is scheduled to start up in 2000 and will supply oil sand feedstock to increase crude oil production from the current 80 million barrels per year to 94 million barrels per year.
The operation will include an integrated truck-and-shovel operation and a new low energy extraction process which will operate at temperatures well below the current 80ºC. These innovations will result in improved energy efficiencies and will see CO2 emissions fall by 25 percent per unit of production between 1990 and 2006.
The Aurora Mine is part of the $6 billion Syncrude 21 integrated suite of investments, which also includes plans for future Upgrader expansions. Upon completion, Syncrude operating costs are expected to be in the C$9 to C$10 per barrel range for new production including upgrading, down from the current C$14 per barrel. By 2007 production capacity is predicted to increase to 155 million barrels per year.
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