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Geotechnical News • December 2012
47
WASTE GEOTECHNICS
Managing fluid fine tailings:
Collaboration in Canada’s oil sands industry
Alan E. Fair and Nicholas A. Beier
Introduction
The development of our oil sands in
Northern Alberta is a relatively new
venture. We have enjoyed an enter-
prise filled with pioneering, innovation
and exciting growth in the creation of
a great new industry. Some believed
the oil sands would never be success-
ful. Fortunately, that thinking proved
to be incorrect. The Canadian oil sands
deposit is host to an estimated 170
billion barrels of recoverable bitumen.
The CBC National News recently
reported that these reserves could meet
Canada’s oil needs for more than 400
years. While this new undertaking has
seized worldwide attention, both posi-
tive and negative, it has also created
significant challenges with respect to
tailings management.
...these reserves
could meet
Canada’s oil needs
for more than
400 years.
The Oil Sands Tailings Research
Facility (OSTRF) recently hosted
the 3rd (Bi-Annual) International
Oil Sands Conference in Edmonton
(December 2 to 5, 2012). One might
ask, who would come to Edmonton in
December? Well, more than 350 del-
egates from around the world attended
(including: China, France, the Nether-
lands, Switzerland, the US and more).
The following article is extracted from
a Keynote Address that was presented
at the conference and is intended to
provide an update on the collaborative
progress being made by the oil sands
in tailings management.
Managing oil sand tailings continues
to be one of the key environmental
challenges facing the industry. During
the early years of operation, industry
efforts to manage tailings focused on
ensuring safe containment of grow-
ing volumes of fluid fine tailings
(FFT). As it became apparent that FFT
volumes could not be well managed
in above ground structures, industry
efforts shifted to tailings management
methodologies whereby the fines were
recombined with the coarse tail-
ings and placed in the mined-out pit.
Current industry attention is focused
on developing methods to dewater
the FFT such that they can be incor-
porated into the final mine closure
landscape
Three fundamental issues for manag-
ing fluid fine tailings throughout the
operating period of oil sands mines
must be addressed to create sustain-
able landforms for mine closure.
These can be summarized as follows.
1. The volume of mature fine tailings
(MFT) produced is substantial. At
the time of writing there are ap-
proximately 850 million m3 of
fluid tailings held in above-grade
containment dams.
2. The methods for transformation of
fluid tailings into stable, sustainable
elements of a closure landscape are
all in various states of develop-
ment, from preliminary research to
commercial practice. None can be
considered as mature (i.e. proven
practice) with performance fully
demonstrated for operation and
closure.
3. Until recently, full commercializa-
tion of methods for fluid fine tail-
ings management was slow. This
has resulted in progressive rec-
lamation respecting fluid tailings
volumes being less than desirable
to date.
managing fluid fine
tailings... must be
addressed to create
sustainable
landforms for mine
closure
In addition, the resulting process-
affected water must also be managed.
This will necessitate the commercial
development of water treatment tech-
nologies that will ultimately enable
the reuse and release of water back
into the environment. Finally, the
dewatered tailings deposits must be
reclaimed such that they can be inte-
grated into the final landscape.