Short term mine planning at Syncrude

Abstract

Abstract The Syncrude Canada Limited Mine has been in operation for the past ten years, producing synthetic crude oil from the oil sands with a consistently upward trend in production each year. The open-pit mine currently delivers an average of 300,000 tonnes of oil sands per day to the Extraction Plant. For the mining of oil sands, the mine is equipped with four draglines, four bucketwheel reclaimer/ conveyor systems and an auxiliary production system to supplement major equipment production. Overburden is stripped by a large fleet of shovels and trucks. All these systems combined will handle approximately 325 million tonnes of material in 1988. The effective technical support is crucial to the achievement of high production objectives. The short term mine planning functions to achieve these objectives, are performed by two groups; Overburden Engineering and Short Range Planning, The short term plans range from day to day operating plans to one year mine plans. This paper will discuss the short term pla...