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WORK NEWS |
General Outlook Suncor Syncrude Albian Sands CNRL Opti-Nexen Major Shutdowns Highway & Town Work Concrete Pumping SAGD's Jackpine Organizing New Projects Aurora
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Northern District Oilsands Report |
The general outllook for the Northern District Operating Engineers, for 2008, is one of increased work on existing industrial projects, and steady work for overburden/mine services sector.
With this high production targets forecasted for all sites, it is expected to be another busy year.
Suncor's $3.5 billion upgrader expansion is still ongoing. Preliminary field work, foundation construction, and the manufacture of major vessels and equipment are still in progress. Large volumes of overburden are forecasted to be removed in 2008, paving the way for overburden and civil work projects. Expansion work at Suncor is currently focused on the Millenium Coker Unit (MCU) at the company base plant. The project, scheduled for commissioning in 2008, is reported to be on schedule and on budget.
Work is also under way on the third Upgrader, the Steepbank Mine extension and on the expansion of Suncor's Firebag in-situ operations with the bitumen production capacity of Firebag stages 1 and 2, including the addition of cogeneration facilities. There are plans for continued construction in 2008. So far these projects are on schedule.
- Cow Harbour is done at the Voyageur project for now. Recently signed new overburden contract at Steepbank. Things are really getting busy.
- Liebherr Canada Ltd continues to expand their fleet.
- Sterling Crane busy with maintenance and construction on MNU project and Plant 300.
- North American Caisson busy with major projects. Work is ongoing at Plant 300, MNU site and on the Voyageur project. 18,000 piles to set.
- Voice Construction busy with water lines at Borealis Camp, which should be complete by mid-Dec. 2007. Enbridge South Tank Farm is ongoing. Also, busy at Horton CBI job and remains on a 5/2 shift.
- Agra has 2 rigs at Suncore Firebag.
- HCS Focus busy with surveying and scanning.
- O.J. Pipelines busy with maintenance contract. Recently finalized new Collective Agreement with Local 955.
- Stalex Construction providing support work for all trades for different companies on site. Snow removal work site wide.
- Horton CBI busy at plant 300.
- Transfield Asset Management Services Integrated Ltd. busy on maintenance.
- CBS Construction busy at plant 300 and other projects.
- Casman busy at plant 300 and other projects.
- KMC has contract work at Steepbank and is steady with overburden and FOM work. They are adding more mechanics and have a target of 80 member crews by Jan. 1, 2008 with a considerable expansion of crew sizes expected in the New Year.
- MM Ltd recently hired six Operating Engineers for maintenance contract with Transfield.
- All Survey Companies are busy with surveying and scanning.
- Lockerbie & Hole are doing work at Plant 300.
- Commonwealth busy at MNU
- North American Site Development is busy with industrial work at MNU.
- Coneco Equipment is busy. As of Jan. 1, 2008 they will be increasing their Local Living Allowance to $1500 to $1600 per month effective (to be competitive with Finning and Transwast Mining).
- Focus has 26 crews working.
Most of the underground work is now complete on Syncrude's environmental performance, known as SERP (Syncrude Emissions Recovery Project). SERP will remove and recover the sulphur from the off-gases from their original two cokers. Modified 11 / 3 shift with payment for initial in and out flights only. Major contracts not awarded as of Dec. 2007. Targeted for completion in 2008.
- Northern Crane busy on maintenance and with Kroll tower crane job at SERP.
- Sterling Crane doing some maintenance work.
- Cross Construction overburden contract for 6 months to a year. Clean up at Base Mine still on going. New 5500 Shovel under construction and expected to be running by mid Dec. 2007. 14 new 789 Haul Trucks are on the way, 7 are expected to be running by mid Dec. 2007. Progress is on schedule.
- Bond-A-Ply busy doing maintenance.
- Jacobs busy on maintenance.
- KMC steady with overburden and FOM work. North Mine Rejects Loads & Assit, 2 hoes and 2 trucks, ongoing.
- TIC Canada has ongoing work at SERP.
- Neegan steady at Base Mine with FOM work and fuel & lube service.
- MM Ltd busy with roads, grounds and maintenance contract at Base Mine. Expect to have 12 to 20 more Operating Engineers by the end of 2008.
- Coneco Equipment is busy.
- MerthLand Industrial busy at Base mine.
- All Survey Companies are busy surveying and scanning.
- MM Ltd busy with long term roads, grounds and maintenance contract. Expect to have 12 to 20 more Operating Engineers by end of 2008.
- Neegan has 4 crews busy with fuel & lube services.
- North American Mining is busy with F.O.M. work and reclamation contract.
- Cross Construction has 3 shifts (5 days, 5 nights, 5 off) working overburden.
- All Survey Companies are busy surveying and scanning.
- North American Mining is busy with reclamation and special projects. Underground piping is ongoing. Recently awarded 15 million meters to expand the South tailing and is currently bidding on 1.4 million meters of reclamation.
- Cross Construction busy with FOM work.
- Mammoet ongoing maintenance work.
- Neegan has fuel & lube contract and drilling project.
- Jacobs Industrial Services busy on maintenance.
- Horton CBI busy.
- All Survey Companies are busy surveying & scanning.
- North American Caisson is busy.
- MM Ltd has a small crew working.
- North American Mining busy with 10 year mining contract.
- Jacobs Industrial Services Ltd. work ongoing at Secondary Upgrader.
- Cardinal continues to bus workers to and from the oil sands & Athabasca Lodge to CNRL site. They have 180 drivers and expect to increase to 200 drivers by year's end.
- Mammoet Crane Inc. has approximately 25 hydraulics working for various contractors.
- Mammoet Crane Western has 6 crawlers busy various contractors. All heavy lifts are done and are moving cranes to the Jackpine site.
- Sterling Crane has 3 to 4 cranes working for PCL day and night. 2 crawlers in mine for shovel work.
- Northern Crane working FROTH Area and East Tank Farm.
- PCL work in Primary Upgrading should be finished by spring 2008.
- Coneco Equipment is busy.
- All Survey Companies are busy surveying & scanning.
SAGD portion of the Long Lake Project is now complete and 4 out of 6 silos are now finished at the Upgrader. Sulphur Recovery Unit is 95% complete with the Air Separator Unit at 98% completion. Debottlenecking should be finished by August 2008 while work on the Ash Prepartation Unit is scheduled for completion by June 2008.
- Northern Crane busy with support work and contract work for Aqua.
- Mammoet busy working on Upgrader and debottlenecking.
- Laprairie Crane busy in the Sulphur Recovery Unit. 2 cranes left working for Fluor with job due to finish in Feb. 2008.
- Streamline Mechanical busy on site services.
- Big Eagle steady with Hydro Vac.
- Agra continues to have a small crew.
- Jacobs Industrial Services Ltd. busy with maintenance contract.
- CBS has small maintenance contract. Picked up contract in gasifier unit.
- All Survey Companies are busy surveying & scanning.
Syncrude planned shut down for April 3, 2008 for 45 days for Coker 8-1 and again in early September 2008 for another 45 days for Coker 8-2. Approximately 3400 workers.
- Crane taxi work busy in town with housing projects, schools, etc.
- Badger Daylighting, Big Eagle North, and Trivax do town hydrovac work from time to time.
- Con Pac Construction finished contract at the Fort McMurray airport and bidding on upcoming contract at different sites.
- Leo Roberts Equipment busy on all sites and in town.
- Bird Construction busy at the sewage treatment plant in town.
Professional Concrete (P-Ban) and A&B Concrete are active, from time to time, on concrete pumping contracts throughout the area on commercial projects and at the plants.
- North American Mining airstrip and road job are complete. Dike job is slated for spring 2008 with 37 million meters of dirt to move. Bids for dike access road and pipeline corridor are expected early spring or late fall 2008.
- Cross Construction busy with FOM work.
- All Survey Companies are busy surveying & scanning.
- Neegan working 6 days on , 6 days off with fuel and lube job. Contract job with Horton CBI servicing equipment.
Steam Assist Gravity Drainage (SAGD). The oil or bitumen is pumped through steam assisted well processes. Water supply and usage is increasingly an issue. These projects tended to be much smaller than the major projects, somewhat like oilfield construction, but increasingly they have become large-scale major projects, such as the Firebag Project and Opti-Nexen's Long Lake Project.
Fort Hills Project (Petro-Canada, UTS Energy and Teck Cominco) is an oil sand mining project that includes a mine located 90 kilometers north of Fort McMurray, a bitumen extraction plant and upgrader in Sturgeon County about 45 kilometers northeast of Edmonton. The mine received regulatory approval in 2002, with approval for the upgrader expected in 2008. The project is currently in the front-end engineering and design (FEED) stage. FEED is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2008, producing a definitive cost estimate and the basis upon which the final go-ahead decision on the Project will be made.
First bitumen production is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2011 and is expected to be about 160,000 b/d. First synthetic crude oil production anticipated in the second quarter of 2012 is expected to produce 140,000 barrels per day (b/d) of synthetic crude oil. The Fort Hills Project is expected to produce up to a total of 280,000 b/d of synthetic crude oil once all phases are complete in 2015.
Kearl Oil Sands Project is an oil sands mining, pipeline and upgrading project in Albert, proposed by Imperial Oil Resources Ventures Limited (Imperial Oil) and ExxonMobil Canada Properties (ExxonMobil Canada). It received conditional approval from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (AEUB) and the Federal Government in 2007.
The proposed development will be an open-pit mining operation. Initial mine development could be as early as 2010 with design capacity of about 100,000 barrels a day, with tow additional phases in 2012 and 2018. Expected eventual production should average about 300,000 barrels of bitumen a day. The initial cost estimate for the mine development was estimated to fall in the $5-8 billion range back in 2004.
Plans are to use state-of-the-art, large scale shovels, trucks, crushers and an oil sands hydrotransport system. The initial mine development (the first train) will involve clearing and draining the surface area, removing the muskeg overburden before mining the oil sands can begin, and stockpiling the muskeg for use in future reclamation. The current planning basis includes an initial mine train with production capacity of about 100,000 barrels a day. A second train will follow.
Current plans do not include any on-site upgrading facilities for the first phase of development. The product will be transported to market through a pipeline system. The application does include an external tailings area until tailings can be stored in a depleted mine pit.
The project includes development of related infrastructure, including a water intake and water pipeline, water storage, an operations camp, and roads.
Imperial is planning to have a camp-based operation with a workforce on a rotating schedule. The peak construction workforce is expected to be 1700 people with approximately 1100 to 1300 permanent jobs, when all three mine trains are in operation.
Northern Lights Oilsands Project. Syneco Energy is engaged in the ecquisition and development of oil sands in the Fort McMurray area of Alberta. Capital cost estimate of 4.4 billion for the upstream mining and extraction portion of the Northern Lights Oil Sands Project and the estimated recovery is 1.3 billion barrels, which will result in production for approximately 30 years.
The International Union of Operating Engineers, Local No. 955 represents close to 9000 men and women in Alberta and Northwest Territories. Why the union: job security, fair contract for employment, someone to speak to your employer on your behalf, great Health Care plan, excellent pension plan, Health & Safety programs and access to better training and skills upgrading.
The power is in the numbers. Many nonunion companies have realized the full benefit and potential of having an experienced, safety minded and dependable unionized workforce. There seems to be a steady increase in the number of company owners actively seeking to sign a Voluntary Recognition Agreement with Local 955.
You do not have to wait for your employer to make the first move. If you are working for a nonunion company and you and your coworkers would like to enjoy all benefits and privileges that our members have, please do not hesitate to call.
If you are interested in your or your fellow workers' future, please don't hesitate to call one of our offices:
Edmonton: (780) 483-0955
Calgary: (780) 250-3840
Fort McMurray: (780) 790-1713Jorma Torkkeli, Business Agent/Organizer
Fort McMurray Office
Phone (780) 790-1713
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Edmonton |
Inland - Commercial production busy.
- Residential production a little slower.Lafarge - Commercial production busy.
- Residential production a little slower.
- The Saputo plant in Wetaskiwin is a milk canning plant. The canned milk industry is highly variable. That necessitates varied production runs. Work in this segment of the local is ongoing. This contract is entering negotiations.
- This segment of the local has been extremely busy during the past season. There should be carry over work for the beginning of the season. Contractors will need to fill seats with experienced operators.
- Road crews looking forward to another busy season, and will be looking for experienced paving personnel and finish grader operators.
- Should be busy with residential and arterial construction. South leg of the Anthony Henday complete. Paving crews will be working more and more night shifts to complete work throughout the summer.
- Ongoing maintenance with shutdowns happening.
- Fluor at Esso is ongoing with 2 shifts. This project will likely be completed about mid 2006.
- Jacobs Catalytic working steadily and has work at Meg for maintenance.
- Presently preparing for a major shutdown.
- The Aecon Module site is busy. The company has picked up another small module contract. This will require the company to ramp up the workforce slightly.
- This Mod Site on the East of Edmonton is slow. This site is slowing down. Fab. shop is going strong.
- This sector is continually busy with our members fully employed. The collective agreement is presently under negotiation.
- Jacobs Catalytic is busy at Shell Scotford. With the completion of the Shutdown this fall the company is well positioned for a large amount of work in 2006. - Jacobs Catalytic at Dow is ongoing with the potential for a small increase in the workforce.
- Commonwealth Mod Yard is very busy building Mods.
- Shell Scotford is very busy manning up: Bantrel, P.C.L., KBR, Taurus, Terraco, Tic, Voice.
- Northwest upgrader by Redwater is shutdown until May 09.
- Should be busy with residential and arterial construction. South leg of the Anthony Henday complete. Petro Way/17th Street asphalt plant being constructed. Residential rehabilitation projects will keep concrete, asphalt and foamed asphalt crews busy.
- This unit is close to 250+ Members and still growing. Direct has picked up new transportation contracts with Canada Safeway, Sobeys, General Motors and Praxair.
- Busy in the shop.
- On going equipment maintenance.
- Steady
- Transwest Mining Systems lost the maintenance contract, so all OE's laid off.
- Bantrel Constructors Co. - has laid off a number of Operating Engineers as they wind down. Completion date expected sometime in October-November, 2008.
- Jacobs Industrial Services Ltd. - sulphur block (scheduled completion June, 2008).
- Abalone Construction Western Ltd. - have laid off the majority of their Operating Engineers. Continue to pick up small contracts.
- Ramping up on Shell modules. They would like to hire more Operating Engineers, but they are having problems getting other tradesmen.
- Wolf lake project winding down in June. Currently, 7 Operating Engineers are working there.
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Southern District Report |
Jacobs has the maintenance contract at Canadian Fertilizers in Medicine Hat, AB.