North West Redwater Sturgeon Refinery

The North West Redwater Sturgeon Refinery will be the first such refinery built in Canada in over 30 years. Fluor is providing front end engineering, detailed engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction and pre-commissioning for three units of the North West Redwater Sturgeon Refinery. These units are: Unit 10 (Crude and Vacuum), Unit 20 (LC Finer), and Unit 30 (Hydroprocessing). The Client is the North West Redwater Partnership (NWR), a joint venture comprising two Calgary based companies: North West Refining, Inc. and Canadian Natural Upgrading Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

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Client's Challenge

NWR is building the first phase of a bitumen refinery to process 79,000 barrels per day (BPD) of bitumen + diluent blend (50,000 BPD of bitumen), in order to produce low-carbon, high-value end products needed by Albertans and global markets.

The facility will be owned, managed and operated by NWR, with bitumen feedstock provided by Canadian Natural Resources Limited as well as the Government of Alberta through its bitumen royalty-in-kind initiative.

NWR is committed to creating opportunity by adding value to the province's resources and ensuring the best possible return on investment, as well as Building it SAFE, Building it RIGHT, in the Heartland of Alberta.

Fluor's Solution

Fluor worked closely with NWR during front end engineering to find solutions to reduce cost. This included a highly modularized design and innovative engineering, which resulted in significant work hours being shifted from site to the Edmonton area module yards.

Front end engineering began in 2011. Detailed engineering started in 2013 after a cost savings initiative phase and completed in 2015. In 2015, assembly of the project's 358 total modules began, 114 of which were assembled by Fluor's Supreme Modular Fabrication facility in Edmonton. Mechanical completion of the refinery is planned for 2Q-2017.

As part of this project, Fluor executed the largest lift in Canadian history with the successful raising of the 1,530-ton cracking reactor. The lift was the fourth largest in Fluor's over 100-year history. This is Fluor's largest construction project in Canada, with over five million craft hours to be worked at the job site. The scope of the project includes over 16 thousand tons of steel, 177 thousand linear meters of pipe, and 670 thousand linear meters of cable. Self-perform construction includes: structural steel, piping and electrical and instrumentation for units 10 and 30. Peak site presence is expected to be around 2,000 people, including craft and staff. Construction innovations include the use of CEMATRIX^TM for optimized backfill, incorporation of engineered scaffolding systems (PERI) into the 3D model, and full implementation of advanced workface planning, setting a new standard for Fluor.

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Conclusion

Fluor was recently named a Celebration of Engineering and Technology Innovation (CETI) Award winner for the company's innovative integrated scaffolding solution used on the project. Fluor received the award in the Scenario-Based Project Planning category. This project is the first refinery built in Canada in 30 years.