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Heavy Oil

Our heavy oil services business began 15 years ago with facilities at Hughenden and Elk Point, Alberta.  Using the centrifugation experience gained at these facilities, in 2005 we launched a new onsite service for oil recovery working in tandem with companies that use steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) techniques for production.  This business has evolved from managing heavy oil in Newalta's facility network to operating equipment on customers' sites and offering a broad range of processing solutions. 

Based on industry outlook, a substantial amount of the future growth in the oil and gas industry is expected to be in connection with the use of SAGD techniques and other in-situ oil sands-related projects.  To support this potential growth opportunity, Newalta has leveraged its Hughenden and Elk Point facilities in this region to act as a staging area, offering integrated services from which equipment and experienced people can be mobilized to customers' sites to process wastewater and recover crude from slop oil.  We have the ability to utilize our facility network from which to draw skilled people to support such onsite growth.

Customer response to our heavy oil services has been encouraging. Newalta has delivered specialized services to numerous customer sites under short and long-term arrangements.

We expect to continue to be the industry leader in this market and are uniquely positioned to keep pace with customer demand as production is expected to increase over the next 10 years.

To enhance capabilities with these services, the 2009 investment plan includes:

  • Increasing capacity at the Hughenden and Elk Point facilities
  • Adding new mobile centrifuges and related equipment
  • Developing a new facility in the Fort McMurray area