Surface Mining
Mine lifecycle, soil salvage, material handling, hydrotransport, separation and tailings generation.
What Canada’s oil sands are
Oil sands are deposits of bitumen mixed with sand, clay, water and other material, concentrated primarily in Alberta.
Surface mining vs in situ recovery
Shallow deposits can be mined while deeper bitumen is generally recovered in place using wells and thermal or other methods.
How surface mining oil sands works
Mineable oil sands are excavated, transported and processed so bitumen can be separated from mineral material.
Soil salvage before oil sands mining
Reclamation success depends partly on what happens before excavation begins.
Material handling in oil sands mining
Mining operations use large shovels, trucks, crushers and slurry transport systems to move very high volumes of oil sand.
Hydrotransport in oil sands mining
Hydrotransport moves conditioned oil sand as a water-based slurry toward extraction and begins physical conditioning of the ore.
How bitumen is separated from mined oil sands
Water-based extraction separates bitumen-rich froth from much of the sand and clay in mined oil sands.
Bitumen froth treatment
Froth treatment reduces water and mineral solids in recovered bitumen before transportation or upgrading.
How oil sands mining creates tailings
After bitumen recovery, large volumes of sand, fine clay, water and residual bitumen remain as tailings.