September 15, 2008

Occupational Health and Safety

Fatality during early stages of Alberta oilsands project start-up

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

A 47-year-old contractor died on a construction site at an oilsands project in northern Alberta after being trapped underwater in an excavator.

Richard Boyd Boughner was cleaning debris, including logs and muskeg, from a tailings pond on Sept. 3 at the Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNRL) Horizon oilsands site about 70 kilometers north of Fort McMurray.

At around 12 p.m., the machine he was operating flipped and sunk to the bottom of the pond.

“Whether this incident is classified as a construction related fatality or an oilsands related fatality has not been determined yet,” said Alberta Ministry of Employment spokesperson Barrie Harrison.

“CNRL is in the process of testing and is in the pilot phase, so this is truly a tailings pond. They fired up the facility on Friday.”

According to Harrison, the worker was employed by a Saskatchewan-based company called Clayton’s Construction. He was operating a Caterpillar 235, which is an amphibious excavator designed to work on soft soil or water.

“He was entering the tailings pond from onshore and was about five metres from the shore when the vehicle tipped over on the drivers side and sunk to the bottom.

He was in water that was approximately three metres deep,” said Harrison.

“CNRL immediately conducted a hazard assessment to see if divers can go in. When the divers went in, it was to recover a body.”

Harrison said it is not known how much time passed between the rollover of the excavator and the arrival of the underwater recovery team.

However, media reports said the body was pulled out of the pond about around 1:30 p.m. or 90 minutes later.

The incident is under investigation by Alberta Occupational Health and Safety, who will look at the company’s safety procedures as well as examine the excavator.

According to CNRL’s second quarter report released in early August, the company has completed its ‘Going Live’ safety orientation for all Horizon Project employees and contractors, as well as systems and start-up training for staff. The Pre Start-Up Safety Reviews have also been initiated in all plants.

“Pre start-up safety reviews are taking longer to complete than originally anticipated, however, the Company is remaining disciplined and will not put the facilities and personnel at risk,” said the report.

Prior to this incident, CNRL reported that there had not been one incident resulting in lost time in more than 20 million man hours or one year.

The Horizon site is in the process of starting up full operations and the entire oilsands site is scheduled to be up and running by the end of 2008.

“Canadian Natural has achieved a significant milestone as we proceed with the final construction, commissioning and staged start-up of the Horizon Project and begin to realize the benefits of the largest single capital project in Canadian Natural’s history,” said Steve Laut, president and COO of CNRL. “Our current schedule will see us producing first bitumen crude oil in early September, first partially upgraded crude oil by the end of September, and first 34 API, light sweet synthetic crude oil in Q4/08.”

The impact the fatality will have on CNRL’s plans for start up and the total cost of the project are not clear. But, operations at the tailings pond were temporarily suspended following the fatality.

According to the second quarter report, a detailed review of the current cost estimate indicates that the final cost of the Horizon Project will increase by about eight per cent or approximately $525 million above the previous construction cost estimates.

This brings the total cost estimate of the Horizon Project to about 36 per cent above the original 2004 $6.8 billion estimate, or about $9.27 billion.

Two temporary workers from China died at the Horizon site in April 2007 when the roof of a massive storage tank collapsed.

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