We decided the only appropriate way to end our summer exploration was to visit the tar sands of Alberta, North America's largest oil field. It is an energy intensive process which strip mines the top 30 meters of a landscape in search of bitumen crude and is the endpoint of the MacKenzie Gas pipeline, whose natural gas will aid in stepping up production on the tar sands.
detail section of the map on who owns rights to tar sand land, the photo above is SynCrude's processing plant.
3. Barge modules suffer sandbar blues
Slave River Journal
September 3, 2008 - Arctic Module Inland Transportation (AMIT) has had to revise parts of its plan to carry hundred-tonne modules to oilsands industry by river because the Athabasca River is too shallow.
Surveys of the Athabasca River turned out to be not as friendly to an industrial barge as the company had hoped, so planners have developed alternative ideas on how to move the hundred-tonne modules up one of the longest river systems in the world.
“We're looking at all options,” says project director Martin Landry. “Nothing is off the table.”
Recent thinking at AMIT is to barge the modules as far as Old Fort Point on the south shore of Lake Athabasca and go overland from there to Fort McKay. Part of the problem is the project's schedule. Modules being shipped from Asia can't even enter the Mackenzie Delta until August once the ice has withdrawn from the Beaufort Sea. Water flow on the Athabasca is low this time of year, making parts of the river difficult for the massive and heavy barges to navigate.
Instead of barging directly to the destination near Fort McKay, Old Fort Point is being considered as the landing point. The modules could travel the last 180 kilometres by land using similar self-propelled moving trailers (SPMTs) as those planned for the portage from Bell Rock to Fitzgerald. This could involve building a permanent or winter road to Fort McKay, either direct or connecting to an already-existing road. Using a winter road would involve storing the modules for months until freeze up, probably at a site near Old Fort Point.
Another possibility is to break the journey into two years and navigate the problematic parts of the Athabasca during the spring when water levels are higher. This would require a place for the modules to over-winter, which could be at Old Fort Point, Bell Rock or Fitzgerald.
Yet another possibility entirely is to dredge the shallow areas of the Athabasca and barge directly to the destination at Fort McKay.
All these scenarios will be laid out in AMIT's final report to its client in Asia, which gets the ultimate decision on whether and how to proceed with the project. The report's deadline is mid-November.
Landry anticipates it will take the client up to six months to decide. If the project goes ahead it will be at least another two years to construct the first modules and marine equipment.
If all goes well the first such barges could be chugging their way up the Mackenzie by August 2010 or 11.
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