it's Canada's secret weapon oil deposits worth trillions but getting the crude out of the ground takes the world's biggest rigs and a mega size refinery in one of the harshest environments on the planet the biggest oil companies in the world are going head-to-head in a race to build the ultimate oil sands mind in the shadow of the Arctic Circle 960 kilometers north of Montana lies Alberta Canada's massive forest an expanse of virgin Timberland the size of New York State undisturbed for 10,000 years until now at the Syncrude oil sands mine one of the world's largest feats of engineering is under construction a ten billion dollar mega project that covers over a hundred thousand hectares of wilderness home to almost 12,000 workers masters of the biggest rigs on the planet hard at work in the middle of nowhere why are they in this remote location battling against one of the harshest climates on earth why put up with temperatures that can swing 80 degrees between the searing heat of summer and the deep freeze of an Alberta winter because just below the surface of this forest lies a buried treasure potentially worth 80 trillion dollars it's not diamonds it's not gold it's oil up to three times what the Saudis have in their backyard at big oil companies will go to any length and do just about anything no matter what the cost in dollars or impact to the natural environment it's a massive undertaking that requires a parade of mega machines and mega structures extract and refine each element has to work in tight coordination with all the others to make a single giant organism dedicated to just one thing to devour the sand and spit out profits it's hard to describe the smell other than it smells like money it must be an intoxicating scent because the work is brutal Nature has definitely stacked the deck against these guys because even though one of the richest oil deposits on the planet is right underfoot it's nearly out of reach no drill can tap it because it's not a liquid instead it's a sticky tar like oil called bitumen mixed with sand to form a heavy gritty dirt loaded with potential but utterly worthless in its natural form getting the oil the black gold out of this useless goop is imperative but it's expensive each barrel of crude rested from these sands costs ten times more to produce than a barrel sucked out of the ground on a traditional oilfield why bother because oil consumption has never been greater and the price of crude keeps climbing that's what drives these men and women to push themselves and their equipment to the breaking point the stakes are high but so are the potential rewards that's why Syncrude came to these parts more than 30 years ago back then the oil sands business was considered the backwater of the industry too expensive but no longer Syncrude has figured out how to make the business profitable their success hasn't gone unnoticed competitors have begun to muscle in 35 kilometers down the road another mega project rises from this frigid landscape Singh crews latest rival Shell Oil's Albion sands a lyrical name for a 2,600 hectare blasted frontier of steel concrete shovels trucks mud sand and oil shallow is the new kid on the block and now they're playing a mean game of catch-up building their own mega structure so far shell has sunk over four billion dollars into their outfit and now they're going head-to-head with Syncrude trying to beat them at their own game the winner will be the one who can produce the most oil at the lowest cost and reap the biggest profits what's the secret volume to make oil from sand you have to move a lot of Earth tons for each bow the best way to do that is by using the biggest and toughest equipment around like the old joke goes size does matter the whole process begins miles from the refinery out at the vast oil sands my after all the trees have been stripped from the land the digging begins every day of the year they try to rip at least 435,000 tons of oil sand out of the ground falling short means falling profits to get the job done Syncrude invested hundreds of millions of dollars in some of the world's largest and most expensive mining machines creating a multi-stage serpentine system for scooping up and transporting and at the head of that mighty beast a dragline a massive electric powered shovel standing almost 20 stories tall capable of scooping 300 tons that's like hoisting twenty-seventh every day of the year they try to rip at least four hundred and thirty-five thousand tons of oil sand out of the ground falling short means falling profits to get the job done Syncrude invested hundreds of millions of dollars in some of the world's largest and most expensive mining machines creating a multi-stage serpentine system for scooping up and transporting oil sands at the head of that mighty beast a dragline a massive electric powered shovel standing almost 20 storeys tall capable of scooping 300 tons that's like hoisting 27 fully loaded city buses in one go it digs out canyons 50 meters deep the dragline dumps its payload into a huge pile food for this bucket wheel reclaimer that eats away at the mountain and transfers the rich load onto a ribbon of conveyor belts 40 kilometers long when it's working right one of these systems can move 6,500 tons an hour to the plant Syncrude originally built four of these monster dig rigs but things haven't gone quite as planned turns out that these muscular machines can be a little finicky no match for the severe local temperatures under the strain of these extreme conditions the equipment breaks down and cracks up and whenever any single piece fails an entire system drops off line slashing oil output by 25% so even though they cost hundreds of millions of dollars Syncrude has decided to dump all four of their dragline systems this is the last working crane and bucket tandem and its last day on the job will be year-end 2005 what could possibly replace them big enough to do the job but flexible enough to prevent a costly shutdown without a solution to that critical problem the Syncrude boom town would surely go bust miles from the Syncrude refinery the mine was getting by on a hope and a prayer the massive draglines once the pride of the operation had proven to be its Achilles heel so engineers made a tough call replace these monsters with an entire fleet of more mobile faster shovels they're smaller than the drag lines but at the oil sands mega structure smaller is a relative term meet the largest shovel of its kind in the world twenty-one meters high that's two school buses stacked end on it packing 8,000 horsepower this 1,300 tonne excavator is capable of lifting 90 tons of sand with every scoop 9,000 tons every hour but that would be a pointless exercise if they couldn't get that mountain of dirt to the extraction plant for processing for that you need trucks really really really big trucks the Syncrude mega-structure runs on these mean machines a fleet of thirty three of the biggest trucks in the world tipping the scales at two hundred and fifty tons each is over six meters tall the height of three SUVs stacked atop each other they can tear up the gravel at speeds up to 67 km/h kicking up a blinding dust storm weighing more than a 747 jumbo jet the truck is so big that the driver barely notices as the giant electric shovel drops more than 360 tons of sand into the truck they're running 24/7 365 days a year the dump truck fleet is the lifeblood of the oil sand operation the shovel and truck combo is a dramatic improvement over the old drag line and conveyor system but nothing's perfect during the spring thaw mine roads start to soften up it doesn't look especially muddy but for a 250 ton dump truck with 360 tons of sand in its bed this stuff is as treacherous as quicksand with 1200 loads a day moving from the mine to the plant it's inevitable that sometime somewhere someone will get stuck like this guy he's going nowhere fast there's only one solution lighten the load and start over 200 barrels of oil headed back to Mother Nature a loss but it didn't cause the mine to shut down and even if the worst happens and the truck had become completely disabled another can rush in to take its place and the sand will keep on flowing straight into the mouth of the extraction plant the last leg of the journey begins here at the train that's the name that Syncrude has given to an innovative and expensive state-of-the-art transfer system the train is composed of three parts first trucks dump their oil sands into gate mouths crushes that mince large chunks into bite-sized pieces next that loose sands fall onto a powerful conveyor belt that transports them to a surge bin it looks like a glorified funnel but it is actually the heart of the transport system it regulates the flow of sands coming into the processing plant making sure that a consistent mix of oil sand and rocks flows just right never too much never too little finally the sands coming from the surge bin are sent to a 42 meter tall silo called the slurry prep tower where the sands mix with water and then travel by a pipeline to the main plant for processing since 1997 the train has run on time a major success that engineers estimate has cut energy costs by 45% in fact the train has proven so valuable that the company has decided to roll the dice again they're taking a big financial risk by building a new train it's based on the existing system so building it should be a breeze right wrong with a price tag of over half a billion dollars this mega project is as expensive and complex as a frontline battleship and getting it built on schedule and on time has been a pitched battle just ask Foreman ken Nauta he's the captain in command of the building crew this week's problem is especially difficult constructing the new surge bin the 7-story tall funnel that will regulate the flow of incoming sand the surge bin was manufactured in Korea then broken down and shipped here piece by piece it took 90 flatbed trucks to haul the hundreds of massive pieces to the construction site this wall sections that are on the ground down here they can schedule and budget originally called for the crew to work five-day 10-hour shifts but that plan went out the window long ago they've been plagued by gale force winds that sometimes make it too dangerous for workers to scale the 24 meter tower ken may be worried but like any good skipper he refuses to show it he wants his team of steel workers and welders to concentrate on getting the job done is he joking sadly not turns out he's got an even bigger problem than whether some of the pieces don't quite fit and that means mucho overtime do you have it up now or what well maybe we'll get it welded up there and we could well the doggone it and then we could jack it off they decide that they have no choice but to try to modify the structure of one of the funnel walls it's a tricky and dangerous job they lift 11,000 kilometres the crew slides the 12 ton puzzle piece into place the time for brute force is over will it fit a little tap and voila one mega milestone down and many more to go but other work can wait the crew has given all they can so Ken give them the weekend off Syncrude started mining in the 1970s in those days the price of oil was so high that it seemed a no-brainer to sink billions into a new technology to wring crude from tar but then in the 1980s the bottom fell out of the oil market the Saudis flooded the world with cheap oil dropping the price to just $10 a barrel synchros oil cost fifteen dollars a barrel in one stroke their business evaporated and they nearly went under but rather than pull up stakes and write off their investment they decided to buy their time and now things are going their way prices are jumping again and that's brought in the competition shale oil they've sunk billions into their own oil sand line at Albion are they crazy didn't they learn from sink weeds earlier brush with disaster no one knows what the future will bring but this time the picture seems different because demand is going through the roof the United States alone burns 20 million barrels a day more than any other country in the world but not for long China with its exploding economy is poised to take the lead putting ever mounting pressure on the world to find more oil at almost any cost shale began construction at Albion in 1999 it took four years and 14,000 workers to get the operation up and working they've pushed themselves to the limit and paid a heavy price for their ambition this is what an oil refinery fire looks like this blaze filmed at a refinery in Texas killed 50 and caused millions of dollars in damage in January of 2003 a devastating fire consumed the brand-new extraction facility at Shell site work ground to a halt for four months the company hemorrhaged money while workers repaired the damage but they got off easy no one died what makes oil sand mining such a perilous enterprise because some of the huge structures that engineers have built are like massive bombs just waiting to go off figuring out how to harness all that explosive power stymied scientists for generations but it was dr. Karl Clark in the 1920s who developed the first method Syncrude was one of the first to put his system to work the heart of the whole operation is here in the extraction facility this is where Syncrude fine-tuned the process and became the largest oil sand producer in the world a title shell would dearly love to claim for itself how does it work Nature gave the process a head start a microscopic view reveals that each tiny grain of sand embedded in the oil is surrounded by a thin sheath of water without the water the oil in the sand would be forever bound together but with the water the sand is isolated and can be removed the recipe for separating couldn't be simpler just add more hot water lots of it some caustic soda and shake well every day nearly half a million tons of sand mix with hot water in these hundred meter long monster mixes called tumblers first the machines shake out the largest of the rocks violently with the big stones out and some hot water in the mix flows into these huge basins called separation vessels hot water enters the mix and as if it were the world's biggest salad dressing the oil globules of bitumen tar separates and rises to the top with a consistency of molasses the bitumen froth empties out into collection vessels from here the last step is the refining process that produces the gas has sold at the pump the leftover water ends up in waste areas called tailings ponds that stretch for miles no one is quite sure whether Alberta's forests can grow back in this hellish wasteland but for some there's a silver lining inside even the worst industrial mess actually that's been spoiled by nature but what oil into it and actually we're cleaning up the sand but they're back cleaning the sand that's one way to look at it but no two ways about it Shell's going to have to clean a lot of sand to catch up to Syncrude to recoup the billions invested at Albion the plant needs to produce a hundred and fifty-five thousand barrels of oil per day every day for the next two years but Syncrude stands in their way because the companies are in intense competition for an key ingredient that's always in short supply something that neither one can do without and must pay for no matter what the cost skilled workers y'all the finding and keeping good employees has fallen to Jeff buckles there's just not enough trades people to go around for all the work that's planned and in progress up here the other thing is the infrastructure in Fort McMurray is really being stretched to the limits the nearest town fort mcmurray is bursting at its seams sixty thousand people are crammed into what is essentially a frontier town and it can't expand fast enough we can get people up from Calgary or Edmonton to come and work here but this is the fact that they can't find a place to live limits how many people we have available to work force housing prices are skyrocketing and wages are even higher thanks in part to a bidding war mentality created by the competing oil companies Rance Gillingham is a good example he's been shoveling sand for 15 years he used to work at Syncrude now he works for Shell it's a safe bet that this Top Gun didn't take a pay cut when he switched sides the first market is the most critical baktun into the truck itself what's the first bucket as and as you can see there is a there's a good good cushion then for dropping the second third and fourth buckets don't let the relaxed confidence of this pro fool you there's intense time pressure on rats he's got just two minutes to fill each truck with 490 ton scoops any longer and he won't make the day's goal today he's pushing olive extra hard because the ground is rock solid Brants has to crack through the two meters of frost on the frozen tundra the shovels bucket is like an ice cream scoop digging into a frozen pint of oil sand ripple it takes a master's touch once I lift the top off then the bottom comes out that much easier for the little little strategy there but even rats can't outmaneuver the sand forever because the stuff he scoops isn't only frozen it's also incredibly abrasive the shovels dig into the sand with enough power to hoist 200 pickup trucks the combination of extreme force and rough sand is enough to shred even the steel teeth on the front of these dinosaurs every 12 hours work halts so a team of mega dentists can replace worn-out pieces of the shovel weighing more than 90 kilograms brand-new a single tooth can lose 27 kilograms in one 12-hour shift enough metal is lost into the mine every day to make two full-size pickups but wear and tear is part of the cost of doing business just ask Colleen Ashton extraction manager he's been working at Albion since before the extraction plant was built each day Colin grapples with a daunting problem the grit coursing through the plants network of Steel veins poses a constant threat we're basically processing sand paper and that sand paper goes through the pipes and wears out the pipes and our vessels very quickly maintenance shutdowns are a fact of life so engineers built not one but two independent extraction lines each capable of processing over 6,000 tonnes of oil sands every hour the excess capacity should keep the plant up and running but during the night disaster strikes line number one goes down with a burst pipe at the same time line two is on the verge of an even worse blowout so Collin has to shut it down as well putting the entire extraction plant offline now the pressures on to climb into the belly of the beast to get this line back up and running as soon as possible their job swap out damaged banana screams despite the fruity name banana screens play a meaty role they filter the slurry that jets through here separating rocks from oil sand but the constant bombardment rips the banana screens apart these steel filters are the only weak spot on the system the abrasive sand moves through the system on a torrent of water the shell plant uses 19 million litres of water an hour and the only available source is the nearby Athabasca River to limit their impact shell recycles the water they take and that has created another maintenance nightmare for the team they call this the cyclo pack a half kilometre course of pipe that fires dirty water through these 31 mini pipes called the Cyclones as water twists through the cyclone pipe the waste products sand and clay fall to the bottom while the lighter cleaner water flows out the top allowing it to return to the system the cyclo pact never before used in the oil sands industry helps clean and reuse an amazing 75 percent of the water that the plant takes in but just as with the banana screens the grit in a cyclone rips the metal to shreds often causing the whole system to shut down for damage control there's no easy way to do it each time the crew has to dismantle the beast clean it and put it back together again in this cyclone the dirty water has savaged the pipes inner metal and rubber filter and even more damage further down take it out because the bodies weren't up from the sand going through it it was leaking it doesn't take long to find the source of the leak the waste tailings have chewed a hole straight through the thick steel skin and another one bites the dust and the chances for the replacement piece aren't much better most construction jobs end but here the building just goes on and on girl needs energy maintenance wizards like : Ashton and his team keep the plant healthy but out on the front lines the miners face their own troubles the Dove truck fleet struggles to operate at full capacity breakdowns are a constant costly play can Albion find a way to boost its immune system and keep the big rigs rolling after 12 hours of back-breaking labor the Albion crew has finished the extraction repairs and not a moment too soon because if they don't restart the plant now all of their work may have been for nothing during a shutdown the oil sands slurry sitting in the pipes and pump begins to congeal if it's allowed to get too stiff it could cause the system to seize up like a massive coronary here in the control room Tom Powell oversees the starter he's like a surgeon trying to get his patients ticker up and running after quadruple bypass his greatest worry is the integrity of the tailings pipe which carries waste out of the operation a clog here would be devastating making sure that all the pumps are operating as they should and we don't lose the velocity on our horse tails line our tailings line is one of our lifelines to our to our plant if we lose the tailings line we have to shut down that train that train has to go down the trick is to ease the pumps back on line slowly one at a time but that's easier said that done as 12,000 tons of oil sands have to be sent coursing through the plant circulatory system Tom's background as a coal miner didn't prepare him for the delicacy of this job it was hair raising because I'm not used to the tonnage is running of 6,500 tons an hour but to me was a half a day of running and the plant I'm running in an hour on one train slowly but surely Tom brings the pipe back into action 24 the heart of the plant begins to beat once again will soon they're running at full capacity but there's a new problem the team that controls the workflow of the trucks and shovels is dealing with a major crisis it just got real busy real quick here no I show you going to crash your one you're just getting no tops without warning all computerized communications to the twenty trucks in the field suddenly go dead the truck drivers are not getting their assignments we're showing the assignments but they're not seeing it come across your screens so they're kind of lost it is critical to the mind that trucks and shovels always know exactly which area of the mind to dig and process if the trucks bring the wrong kind of sand the extraction plant could clog and that would be a nightmare so engineer's scramble to get the system up and working again frantically the team tries to radio the drivers to find out where they are and either give them their assignments or order them to stay put meanwhile the spring thaw is wreaking its own haven't with the trucking fleet some of the rigs have been pulled off line and directed here to the mechanic shop for badly needed repairs Darrell Oscar chav is lead truck mechanic his job is to keep the trucks in the mine and out of his shop the pressure is on the crew to finish their work as quickly as possible these particular conditions are very extreme for the vehicle it's hard on their engines it's hard on the barratry hard on steering linkage yesterday Daryl and his crew made a drastic decision replace the entire engine the truck has locked 16,000 hours Daryl had hoped it could hold out a bit longer ideally but this engine is cooked a new one weighing 18 tons will cost $600,000 and this truck will be out of commission for the five days it will take mechanics to repair it for Daryl saying goodbye to an engine heavier and more expensive than a garage full of cars is all in a day's work with everything you want it to live forever just like our vehicles are meanwhile back in the command center engineers think they've located the communication problem that decapitated the truck communication network their power went down at one of the substations now it's just a matter of rebooting the system and the trucks can roll once more yeah you betcha the control room can breathe a sigh of relief for now it's back up and running perfect there now subway just the way it does 99.9 percent of the time here that's why they get the big bucks they're not the only ones salaries for truck drivers can reach over a hundred thousand dollars Canadian wages are fat because labour is scarce and that scarcity has opened doors for people who might not otherwise get a shot in a place like this drivers like Tyler and Tamera for two years she's been breaking down gender stereotypes the coolest thing about this job it's just the reaction on people's faces when I tell them I Drive the biggest Chuck in the world after a few years of hard work shells Albie and mine gamble is about to pay off and they've already decided to up the stakes now they're planning a massive three billion dollar expansion that will double output to 300,000 barrels of oil a day putting them in the lead as the world's largest oil sands mine but the competition isn't about to take a challenge like that lying down in the midwinter darkness a rumble can be heard in the distance on highway 63 Royal Canadian Mounted Police have shut down traffic in both directions to make way for a massive new addition to sync routes processing mega-structure at 60 metres long and over 360 tons two trucks have to team up to tow this one piece it takes several days to drive it 435 kilometers from Edmonton and this is just one of thousands of gigantic new parts arriving here by truck an isolated outpost like the Timbuktu of the north it is through these enormous vessels and pipes that the tar like bitumen flows and is transformed into lighter crude oil in the final stage of processing called upgrading already larger than Manhattan Island Syncrude is expanding its upgrading facility in one of the largest construction projects on the planet if they succeed they will double their oil production to 500,000 barrels every day take that Albion there's just one problem they've run out of room so the only option is to build up instead of out 90 meters up and that complicates matters for the team that's in charge of constructing the centrepiece of the new expansion project this may look like a deadly missile but it's not it's a 540 tonnes segment of the plants brand-new coca a coca is the cooker that refines the heavy tar into a lighter sweeter and more valuable product inside temperatures soar above 500 degrees sprayed under high pressure into the coca the bitumen flash evaporates creating a lighter oil vapor the vapor rises and eventually condenses into the final product leftover carbon residue called coke makes the way to the Coker's furnace where it's recycled as fuel the new 85 meter tall Coca has to fit snugly into the old upgrading facility earth parson has the job of orchestrating the work and between the tight confines of the construction site and the complexity of the system he's building he's got his hands full things are getting down now he and his crack team slowly hoist the steel as heavy as 80 elephants and by day's end they manage to slide the new coca right into place the hard part will be hooking it up and bringing it online for that they're going to have to get their men into position high overhead and that puts the burden on the shoulders of these guys the scaffolders the Daredevils of the jobsite their job is to forge a path to the hard-to-reach places that the pipe fitters and other technicians have to get to inherent part of trying to build these places now once upon a time it was considered an accessory and now you can't build a place like this here without temporary scaffolding today scaffold Foreman Cathy kitty cat Bouchard leaves her team hard at work 60 meters overhead they're preparing the way for the final installation of a vital new piece of equipment something that won't add to sink roots bottom line but will reduce pollution this is the best in sulfur dioxide reduction technology in its natural form that are like bitumen is heavily contaminated with sulfur burning it releases the sulfur into the air getting the sulfur out before shipping the oil is critical some of the sulfur comes out of the bitumen in a molten form that eventually solidifies and ends up here piled up to form these growing pyramids four and a half million tons so far and growing by 1500 tons a day sink roots Coker's released 227 tons of sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere every day a dangerous pollutant that causes acid rain and smog that's where the new sulfur dioxide reducer comes in and the scaffolders they lock aluminum beams together with clamps to build this temporary walkway 60 metres above concrete I'm not afraid of heights but I have them I really respect it I were always careful I always tie off and I'm always watching my footing and I never take for granted that nothing's gonna happen me watch your stuff right here they knock the last clamp in right on time a job well done welders will follow to make the final connections that will bring this baby online it's taken four years to get this far in the construction of the new Coker thousands of tasks still lie ahead pipe fitting insulating electrical work at least another year before anyone is calling this job done but even this is only the beginning in the continuing quest to cut costs and increase profits a mega project like this has to keep moving forward or die within the next 30 years there will be more mines like this transforming this frozen forest into the Saudi Arabia of the West it won't be cheap oil but it could be a steady supply with reserves equal to the amount of oil consumed worldwide for 55 years but extracting that energy is already having an unprecedented impact on the Canadian environment trees cut water diverted air and soil polluting the oil industry has promised to restore the wilderness after the mines are no longer active but no one knows how long that will take or even if it's possible for now though that seems a risk that the world is willing to take
