About 20% of Canada’s oil sands is close enough to the surface to be mined. Suncor uses large trucks and shovels to extract the oil sands that are near the surface (approx. 130-200 ft deep).
- Hot water is used to separate the bitumen from the sand. This step is called extraction. Bitumen is heated and sent to drums where excess carbon (in the form of petroleum coke) is removed.
- Vapours from the coke drums are sent to fractionators where they condense into naphtha, kerosene and gas oil.
- The end product is synthetic crude oil, which is shipped to refineries across North America to be further refined into jet fuels, gasoline and other petroleum products.
