Special report: Athabasca tar sands

A synthetic crude oil is being produced from the Athabasca oil sands region of northeastern Alberta. The Athabasca operations are broken down into 3 divisions: mining, extraction of oil from the sand, and pipelining to market. The entire project, operated by Great Canadian Oil Sands, Ltd., an affiliate of Sun Oil Co., is self-sufficient except for the water supply. By- products of the upgrading operation supply all of the energy requirements. The hydrotreaters used for desulfurizing the crude operate at 1,500 psi. Six coking drums with 26-ft diameter are also used. The mining operation involves the unique use of 2 huge bucket-wheel excavators. A hot-water separation process used to extract the bitumen from the tar sands.