ConocoPhillips gets green light for oil sands project

A consortium with ConocoPhillips Canada as operator has approval from the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board to proceed with a C$1 billion, 100,000-barrel-per-day oil sands project in northeastern Alberta.

Once a commercial evaluation is completed later this year, the partners – ConocoPhillips 43.5 percent, TotalFinaElf 43.5 percent and Devon Energy 13 percent – will decide whether to start work on the Surmont project.

The plan is for a staged development, starting at 25,000 barrels per day in 2006 and growing in two more stages of three years each. The Surmont leases contain an estimated 15 billion barrels, of which 5 billion are thought to be recoverable using steam-assisted gravity drainage technology, which injects steam to loosen the bitumen deposit and force it to the surface.