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Description:
Syncrude Canada Ltd. is the world's largest producer of light sweet crude
oil from the Athabasca Tar Sands. Syncrude currently produces 13 percent of
the nation's petroleum requirements. At their Mildred Lake Facility,
Syncrude operates large scale oil sands mines, bitumen extraction and
upgrading facilities, and in the associated infrastructure they produce a
value added light crude oil product known as Syncrude Blend (SSB). Canron
was one of three fabricators awarded a contract in October 2001 to supply
structural steel for the Upgrader Expansion 1 (UE-1) Project at
Mildred Lake, Alberta. Due to a fast track schedule and the requirements
for all drawings and correspondence to be sent electronically, Dowco was
the detailer of choice for Canron . Currently we have built 32 models for
this project, which comprises 247 divisions. When a division is complete
we send the model back to Syncrude to superimpose their piping in our
model, allowing them to check for any clashes of pipes and structural
steel. Module steel, which comprises trusses and infill steel, is sent
from the fabricator to an assembly yard in Edmonton. The steel is assembled
into modules that can be 60 feet in length, 25 feet wide and 3 stories
tall. The contractor installs the piping, electrical cables and trays into
the module before it is placed on special dollies and slowly hauled up to
the site about 400 miles North of Edmonton. All other stick steel is sent
from the fabricator directly to the job site. This is a working mill site
and the installation of the new steel can only be done during certain
pre-determined shut down periods. The scheduling of this project is very
critical to Syncrude to ensure material is available
exactly when it is required. We understand it costs Syncrude a million
dollars a day during these shutdowns and as you can imagine, schedule is
critical.
The current scope of work is about 7000 tons. By the time the project is
complete there will be about 15,000 shop drawings, 1500 erection drawings
and 27,000 shipping pieces. There is an UE-2 Expansion planned in the near
future and hopefully our performance will enable us to be successful in
being awarded this future project when this work comes out for
bidding. Syncrude receives shop drawings from all over North America.
Engineers who approved our shop drawings comment that our drawing
presentations are some of best he has received.
We have had some big challenges due to continual revisions and constant
schedule changes and Thank you to all the "Dowco Team"(25 members) who all
did an excellent job and performed well under pressure. Every person helped
by suggesting ways of improving our procedures on this job and it is the
reason we are ahead of schedule. Another job well done. |
