A large excavator loads a truck with oil sands at the Shell Albian mine near the town of Fort McMurray in Alberta.
Private company Value Creation Inc. and its wholly owned BA Energy Inc. unit have filed an application with Alberta's energy regulator to build a new oil sands upgrader in northern Alberta.
The company said Monday it has asked the Energy Resources Conservation Board for approval to build a 1,000 barrel per day oil sands upgrading pilot project on its TriStar leases in the Athabasca region near Fort McMurray.
The TriStar leases contain more than two billion barrels of recoverable bitumen that can support 200,000 barrels of daily heavy oil production for several decades, the companies said in a release.
The pilot project would use so-called SAGD, or steam assisted gravity drainage, technology.
Under that system, steam is injected deep underground by pipeline to melt the thick bitumen, which is later pumped to the surface using a second collector pipeline.
Value Creation has two other main ventures planned to develop its oilsands businesses in Alberta.
Earlier this year, it struck a partnership deal with BP Canada to develop the Terre de Grace oilsands properties in the Athabasca region. A 10,000 barrel per day semi-commercial project has already received regulatory approvals.
The company through BA Energy also has plans to build a 260,000 barrel per day merchant upgrader in the Heartland industrial area near Edmonton, a project that could be a hub for future oil shipments from Alberta to North America and the Pacific Rim.