Japan Canada Oil Sands Limited (JACOS) is an oil sands extraction company. It is the operator of the Hangingstone oil sands project. JACOS is a subsidiary of JAPEX (Japan Petroleum Exploration Company Limited), which owns 86% share in the company. Minor shareholders are Inpex (5%), Mitsui (4%), and Japanese financial institutions (3%).

History

JACOS started oil sands activities in the Athabasca area in 1978 on leases held by Petro-Canada, Canadian Occidental and Imperial Oil to form the PCEJ group. It was the first Asian-owned oil company to exploit the Athabasca oil sands. JACOS and its partners experimented with a cyclic steam stimulation (CSS) pilot project on the Hangingstone Lease from 1984 to 1994.

In 1992, JACOS parent company JAPEX participated in the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA) steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) pilot experiments at the underground test facility (UTF) site. With the positive results from the UTF project, JACOS decided to further pursue SAGD technology at the Hangingstone site. A 3-phase demonstration project was designed and constructed with the first phase becoming operational in 1999.

Operations

The JACOS Hangingstone SAGD facilities are located on Lease OSL70, approximately southwest of Fort McMurray and west of the community of Anzac. It currently operates 15  horizontal well pairs and the production is approximately 8,000-8,500 barrels of bitumen per day.

JACOS (75%) and Nexen (25%) are pursuing development plans for the larger portion of the Hangingstone lease. An extensive 3-D seismic program was conducted over part of the prospective bitumen area in 2002. Additional exploration core-hole drilling and a 3-D seismic survey began in the winters of 2007 and 2008 to further delineate and define the size and extent of the bitumen resource. The company plans to drill more than 100 delineation wells. This is the first step for setting up a commercial venture with capacity of up to . The potential start-up of the new facilities would be by 2014.

JACOS together with N-Solv is currently working on a demonstration plant, to be operational in 2008. The pilot plant will use N-Solv in-situ extraction technology. This technology uses solvents to extract bitumen from in-situ oil sand reserves. The plant would have a peak capacity of about of bitumen production. Total pilot plant construction costs are expected to be about US$45 million.

See also

• Tar sands
• History of the petroleum industry in Canada

References and links