Alan Fair led the Oil Sands Tailings Consortium before his retirement. Al Hyndman consults on Total's Joslyn oil sands mine, and gave Fair's keynote presentation at the Oil Sands Tailings 2014 Conference. Hyndman discusses general facts about the first oil sand tailings pond, and the significance of Fluid Fine Tailings and their impact on tailings ponds, as well as technological advancements that have assisted the oil and gas industry from an historical perspective.
Part One 14:00
The first part of their presentation covers the development of the oils sands from 1967 and the discovery that fine clay particles in the fluid tailings would not settle out of the water column. And the tailings ponds to retain the fluid fine tailings (FFT) grew.
The behaviour of fine clays in water and the consequences on tailings management in Alberta's Oil Sands is covered in this presentation. Much of the perceptions of oil sands mining follow from the challenges of managing fluid fine tailings. An essential presentation for those who want to understand and comment on oil sands development in Alberta.
Part Two 7:07 (https://youtu.be/5t0wodSfqic)
Alan Fair and Al Hyndman in the second part of their keynote presentation describe the tailings management and reclamation research through the 1970's and 1980's.
Dam safety was and continues to be a primary focus of oil sands tailings management. A wide range of management and monitoring practices were adopted to ensure that the growing volumes of fluid fine tailings could be contained while research on methods to separate fine clay from water continued.
Pit lake research began in the 1980's and composite tailings were the focus of 1990's research.
Throughout these decades, treatment technologies research was paid for by oil sands companies.Getting fine clay to settle from water and converting tailings ponds to reclaimed land was proving to be a complex problem.
Part Three 11:48
In the third part of their keynote presentation, Alan Fair and Al Hyndman cover the suite of treatment technologies tested in the 2000's for Alberta's oil sands tailings.
From deposition on sand beaches to centrifugation, oil sands companies have made large scale investments in full-scale tests of technologies to remove the fine clay particles from tailings water. Composite tailings treatment, originally viewed as the silver bullet in the 1990's was abandoned by some companies in favour of alternate technologies.
This presentation provides a concise list of fluid fine tailings treatment in Alberta's oil sands.
Part Four 7:25
In the final part of their keynote presentation, the wide-spread collaboration among oil sand companies on tailings research and technology is highlighted.
COSIA is the latest iteration but early in the oil sands development, Syncrude and Suncor were cooperating on tailings research. Alan Fair led the Oil Sands Tailings Consortium so there are some interesting insights in this aspect of cooperation among competing companies.
In closing, they summarize what is to come in oil sands tailings.
Alan Fair's keynote address and Al Hyndman's presentation of that keynote were made at the Oil Sands Tailings 2014 Conference, Lake Louise, Alberta, Dec. 8, 2014.
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