A large part of oil sands mining operations involves clearing trees and brush from a site and removing the overburden—topsoil, muskeg, sand, clay and gravel—that sits atop the oil sands deposit. [146]

Mar 8, 2023 · There's more to mining than just delivering oil sands to the processing plant. From start to finish, the mining team looks after tree clearing, overburden removal, water management, tailings storage and closure activities once the mine has been depleted.

Surface Mining. Surface mining is used when bitumen is close to the surface (within 250 feet). About 20 percent of oil sands reserves are close enough to the ground’s surface be mined. Mining shovels dig into the formation and transport the sand mixture to large trucks.

Oct 10, 2023 · Oil sands have been a significant source of oil production, but they are also a subject of environmental concern due to the energy-intensive extraction process and the potential for habitat disruption, water contamination and greenhouse gas emissions associated with their extraction and processing.

Syncrude opens oil sands mining and bitumen upgrading mega-project in northeastern Alberta. Syncrude operations near Mildred Lake north of Fort McMurray, late 1970s Source: Courtesy of Syncrude Canada Ltd. Partnership between industry and the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority ...

Mar 20, 2014 · Oil sands extraction occurs through two major approaches: surface mining and deep drilling called in situ. Surface mining first strips the area of the so-called overburden (i.e., vegetation, soil and earth layers above the bitumen ), and creates large open-pit mines from which the bitumen is removed with shovels and trucks to be physically and ...

Jun 19, 2024 · Currently, 20% of oil sands reserves are accessible via mining techniques. Large shovels scoop the oil sand into trucks which then move it to crushers where the large clumps of earth are processed. Once the oil sand is crushed, hot …

Surface mining is used when the oil sands deposits lie within 70 meters (200 feet) of the earth’s surface. About 20% of oil sands deposits are close enough to the surface to be mined. Large shovels scoop oil sands into haul trucks that transport …

Integrated oil sands mining operations accomplish three main functions: mining the oil sands, separating the bitumen from the sand and upgrading the bitumen so refiners can work with it. The mining process in a nutshell is: Trucks take the oil sands to crushers where it …

Feb 17, 2023 · The basic components of an oil sands mine — from the mining pit, through the bitumen production process, and tailings reclamation. This chapter looks at how technology has evolved over the years, and highlights the key differences between the operators.