Suncor Energy has awarded Honeywell the contract for the operator training simulator on its Voyageur oil sands upgrader in Northern Alberta. Honeywell’s UniSim technology will be a key component of Suncor’s ‘operational readiness’ initiative covering staff training and safe plant start-up. The Voyageur upgrader will process bitumen into crude oil with a targeted production capacity of 200,000 barrels of oil per day by 2012.
Macleod
Honeywell’s regional general manager Tom Macleod said, ‘Operator training is at the heart of plant safety, reliability and efficiency—all of which are critical for a successful startup and continuing operations at green field facilities such as Voyageur. By preparing operators for potential problems, operators can mitigate the risk of lost production and catastrophic accidents.’
Optimize
The simulator can be used beyond its training role to accelerate time to first oil and, once the plant is operating, to further optimize overall production. Suncor pioneered bitumen extraction and refining in the late 1960s and is still the single-largest investor in Canada’s oil sands industry. Northern Alberta’s oil sands are the world’s second-largest oil reserve, following Saudi Arabia.
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