Private (subsidiary of CNOOC Limited) | |
Industry | Oil and Gasoline |
Founded | 1999 |
Headquarters | Calgary, Alberta, Canada |
Key people | Christopher Slubicki (President & CEO) |
Website | www.opticanada.com |
OPTI Canada is a Calgary, Alberta based oil sands development company. Established in 1999, its sole project is the Long Lake oil sands project, of which it owns 35%. The remaining 65% is owned by project operator Nexen Inc.
OPTI was founded as Ormat Process Technologies Inc. in 1999 by Israeli energy company Ormat Industries, which had developed the OrCrude process in the 1990s. [1] Ormat was approached by Calgary-based Nexen, who sent a delegation to Israel to supervise a test of the process. [1] However, using OrCrude in the oil sands appeared uneconomical to Nexen, who withdrew. [1] Ormat instead contacted Calgary's Suncor Energy, with whom it founded OPTI as a 50-50 venture, with the Nexen delegation's head, Jim Arnold, as its first employee. [1] Suncor's land at Burnt Lake was used by Ormat to build an OrCrude demonstration plant, using oil supplied by Suncor. [1]
However, Suncor soon withdrew from the venture, and Nexen returned to take a 50% stake. [1] In 2004, the OPTI decided to expand Long Lake to commercial-scale, and raised over $1.5 billion of private equity and debt. [1] Also in 2004, OPTI underwent a $300 million initial public offering (IPO). [1] [2] In January 2009 OPTI sold 15% working interest in Long Lake project to Nexen for $735 million, following an 89% drop in share price and increasing expenses. [3] [4] In early 2011 OPTI faced severe liquidity problems and an inability to service its $2.8 billion debt. Its shareprice closed at $0.30 on February 4, 2011, down from a high of $24.85 in 2008. Analysts believed bankruptcy or restructuring of the company was likely. [5] [6]
On November 28, 2011 it was announced the company had been acquired by CNOOC Luxembourg S.à r.l, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited. The total value of the Acquisition was approximately US$2.1 billion. [7]
The Long Lake project uses OPTI's proprietary OrCrude process, which produces usable fuel from byproducts of extracted bitumen. This fuel is used to generate steam for bitumen extraction using steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) technology. OrCrude additionally produces hydrogen, which is used for hydrocracking in the refining process.
Typically, natural gas is used to generate steam for SAGD extraction. However, using OrCrude-generated fuel significantly reduces the need for natural gas, reducing OPTI's operating costs by approximately $10 per barrel of oil produced. [1]
The Athabasca oil sands are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern Alberta, Canada – roughly centred on the boomtown of Fort McMurray. These oil sands, hosted primarily in the McMurray Formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen, silica sand, clay minerals, and water. The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits.
Syncrude Canada Ltd. is one of the world's largest producers of synthetic crude oil from oil sands and the largest single source producer in Canada. It is located just outside Fort McMurray in the Athabasca Oil Sands, and has a nameplate capacity of 350,000 barrels per day (56,000 m3/d) of oil, equivalent to about 13% of Canada's consumption. It has approximately 5.1 billion barrels (810,000,000 m3) of proven and probable reserves situated on 8 leases over 3 contiguous sites. Including fully realized prospective reserves, current production capacity could be sustained for well over 90 years.
Nexen is a Canadian oil and gas company based in Calgary, Alberta. On 25 February 2013, Nexen became a wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CNOOC Limited.
Connacher Oil and Gas Limited is a Calgary-based exploration, development and production company active in the production and sale of bitumen in the Athabasca oil sands region. Connacher's shares used to trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange, but it was de-listed in 2016, after filing for insolvency.
The Wood River Refinery is an oil refinery located in Roxana, Illinois, approximately 15 miles (24 km) north of St. Louis, Missouri, on the east side of the Mississippi River. The refinery is currently owned by Phillips 66 and Cenovus Energy and operated by the joint-venture company WRB Refining, LLC (WRB). WRB was formed on 1 July 2007, with Encana taking a 49% interest in Wood River and also Phillips 66's Borger refinery. Encana subsequently spun off oil sands producer Cenovus and ConocoPhillips spun off Phillips 66. In return for a 49% stake in the refinery, ConocoPhillips gained a joint interest in two Alberta oil sands (bitumen) heavy oil projects: Christina Lake (Alberta) and Foster Creek. ConocoPhillips’ interest was sold to Cenovus in May 2017, leaving Cenovus the sole owner and operator of the assets. Cenovus uses SAGD technology at those sites.
Canada's oil sands and heavy oil resources are among the world's great petroleum deposits. They include the vast oil sands of northern Alberta, and the heavy oil reservoirs that surround the small city of Lloydminster, which sits on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. The extent of these resources is well known, but better technologies to produce oil from them are still being developed.
Steam injection is an increasingly common method of extracting heavy crude oil. It is considered an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method and is the main type of thermal stimulation of oil reservoirs. There are several different forms of the technology, with the two main ones being Cyclic Steam Stimulation and Steam Flooding. Both are most commonly applied to oil reservoirs, which are relatively shallow and which contain crude oils which are very viscous at the temperature of the native underground formation. Steam injection is widely used in the San Joaquin Valley of California (USA), the Lake Maracaibo area of Venezuela, and the oil sands of northern Alberta (Canada).
The Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) was an Alberta crown corporation to promote the development and use of new technology for oil sands and heavy crude oil production, and enhanced recovery of conventional crude oil. It was funded by the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund. Its head office and information centre were located in Edmonton, Alberta and a second office in Calgary, Alberta in Canada.
The Clearwater Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Early Cretaceous (Albian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in northeastern Alberta, Canada. It was first defined by R.G. McConnell in 1893 and takes its name from the Clearwater River near Fort McMurray.
Although there are numerous oil companies operating in Canada, the majority of production, refining and marketing is done by fewer than 20 of them. According to the 2013 edition of Forbes Global 2000, canoils.com and any other list that emphasizes market capitalization and revenue when sizing up companies, as of March 31, 2014 these are the largest Canada-based oil and gas companies. However more recent changes, possibly mergers or a stronger showing in the price of oil could mean a few of the oil sands producers are underrepresented; this is because Canadian companies are increasingly dependent on production from that source, which is hurt severely when oil prices decline below 50 to 60 dollars a barrel since costs per barrel traditionally exceed $28 and non-upgraded bitumen produces 1.7 fewer barrels per metric ton than West Texas Intermediate oil. A few of the larger companies don't show up in the Forbes list because its ranking system takes many different factors into account. Syncrude and Irving Oil are also leaders in the Canadian industry, with Syncrude being the top producer of oil sands crude and Irving Oil operating the largest oil refinery in the country. Also, based on the price paid for a 9% share in Syncrude Canada Ltd by Sinopec the company could be worth as much as US$50 billion. Canadian oil company profits quickly recovered from the financial crisis; In 2009 they were down 90% but in 2010 they reached $8.4 billion; Helping profits is the smaller price gap between West Texas Intermediate oil ($85/bbl) and Western Canadian heavy crude ($65/bbl) with the price of upgraded synthetic oil surpassing WTI when supply falls. The two largest are 2 of the 11 most valuable Canadian companies. 2,412 oil and gas companies are based in Calgary, Alberta alone.
The Long Lake oil sands upgrader project is an in situ oil extraction project 40 km (25 mi) southeast of Fort McMurray in the Athabasca oil sands region of Alberta. The upgrader side of the facility has been shut down indefinitely after the deaths of two workers caused by an explosion January 16, 2016 in the Hydrocracker Unit however the SAGD site is still operational. The project is operated by Nexen, a wholly owned subsidiary of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) Limited. Long Lake is an integrated steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and upgrading operation that uses a proprietary OrCrude technology as well as hydrocracking and gasification to produce Premium Synthetic Crude (PSC) oil. Production capacity at Long Lake is 72,000 barrels per day (11,400 m3/d) of bitumen which, when upgraded, generates approximately 58,500 barrels per day (9,300 m3/d) of crude oil.
Ormat Technologies Inc. is a provider of alternative and renewable energy technology based in Reno, Nevada. The company built over 150 power plants and installed over 2,000 MW. As of February 2016 Ormat owns and operates 697 MW of geothermal and recovered energy based power plants. The company's shares have been listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange since 1991, and the New York Stock Exchange since 2004. The company's main production facilities are based in Yavne, Israel.
Canadian Natural Resources Limited, or CNRL or Canadian Natural, is a Canadian oil and gas exploration, development and production company, with its corporate head office in Calgary, Alberta. Along with its core area Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin (WCSB), CNRL also has North Sea and offshore West Africa fields. As of December 31, 2017, the company’s gross proved crude oil, bitumen, SCO, and NGLs reserves totaled 7,742 million barrels and proved natural gas reserves totaled 6,771 billion cubic feet. By 2018 CNRL ranked number 321 on the Forbes Global 2000 list.
MEG Energy is a pure play Canadian oil sands producer engaged in exploration in Northern Alberta. All of its oil reserves are more than 1,000 feet (300 m) below the surface and so they depend on steam-assisted gravity drainage and associated technology to produce. The company's main thermal project is Christina Lake. 85-megawatt cogeneration plants are used to produce the steam used in SAGD which is required to bring bitumen to the surface. The excess heat and electricity produced at its plants is then sold to Alberta's power grid. Its proven reserves have been independently pegged at 1.7 billion barrels and probable reserves 3.7 billion barrels ; That's significant considering only 300 billion barrels of the 1.6 trillion barrels of bitumen in Alberta is considered recoverable under current technology. The value of those reserves is over $19.8 billion. CNOOC has a minority 16.69% interest in MEG Energy.
Laricina Energy Ltd. was a private Canadian oil producing company engaged in exploration in North-Eastern Alberta. The company targeted oil sands opportunities outside of the Athabasca mining area and was focusing on in situ plays in the Grosmont and Grand Rapids formations. Its headquarters were located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Located in northwest-central Alberta, the Peace River oil sands deposit is the smallest of four large deposits of oil sands of the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin formation.
Western Canadian Select is one of North America's largest heavy crude oil streams. It is a heavy blended crude oil, composed mostly of bitumen blended with sweet synthetic and condensate diluents and 25 existing streams of both conventional and unconventional Alberta heavy crude oils at the large Husky Energy terminal in Hardisty, Alberta. Western Canadian Select—which is the benchmark for emerging heavy, high TAN (acidic) crudes— is one of many petroleum products from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin oil sands. WCS was launched in December 2004 as a new heavy oil stream by EnCana, Canadian Natural Resources Limited, Petro-Canada and Talisman Energy Inc.. Husky Energy has managed WCS terminal operations since 2004 and joined the WCS Founders in 2015.