Canada's Nexen, Opti-Canada To Spend $1.5 Billion On 60,000

Oil Daily, The, April, 2002 by Barbara Shook

Canada's Nexen, Opti-Canada To Spend $1.5 Billion On 60,000 b/d Synthetic Crude Plan

Nexen and a Canadian technology partner are moving toward construction of a 60,000-barrels-per-day synthetic crude project that will convert bitumen into a premium-grade, light-sweet product, the company said Thursday.

The former Canadian Occidental Petroleum and Opti Canada will be 50-50 partners in the venture to be located at Long Lake, Alberta, where Nexen has other facilities, said Tim Jeffery, director of investor relations. The project carries an all-inclusive price tag of about $1.5 billion, or $25,000 per barrel-day of capacity.

He told the annual Howard Weil Energy Conference in New Orleans that the feedstock will be bitumen, heavy oil that has an...