Suncor: King of Canada’s Oil Sands Canada’s oil sands are the third largest oil deposit in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. The largest oil sands producer in Canada, Suncor Energy (SU), has managed to dominate market share in oil sands mining, in-situ, and synthetic crude oil operations. Suncor began oil sands mining operations with the Millennium Mine in 1967, currently known as Suncor’s Base Operations, with initial production capacity of 294,000 barrels per day. Base Operations now has the highest capacity of any oil sands mine, with 350,000 barrels per day. In 2004, Suncor began in-situ oil sands operations at its Firebag facility, with a capacity of 35,000 barrels per day. Unlike the surface mining of Suncor’s Base Operations, at Firebag Suncor extracts oil from underground through the injection of steam, heating and liquefying the oil, before pumping it back up to the surface. Today, the Firebag […]