Paris, July 5, 2007

 

Technip has been awarded by Fort Hills Energy L.P. a contract for the transformation of heavy oil from the bitumen sands of the Fort Hills Oil Sands project. This services contract includes front-end engineering design, detailed engineering, procurement, construction and project management for the primary upgrader^*, to be constructed near Edmonton in Alberta (Canada).

The project covers a diluent recovery unit (DRU), a delayed coking unit (DCU), and related facilities. The DRU will recover the solvent from the diluted bitumen pipelined from the Fort Hills mine site to the upgrader. The DCU will upgrade the heavy bitumen into lighter hydrocarbons through coke extraction. The hydrocarbons will be further processed in other sections to become synthetic crude oil, which will then be refined into consumer products such as gasoline and diesel.

Technip's operations and engineering center in Rome (Italy) will execute the contract, beginning with the confirmation of the existing design basis memorandum and associated cost estimate.

Fort Hills Energy L.P. consists of Petro-Canada with a 55% working interest, UTS Energy Corporation with a 30% working interest and Teck Cominco Limited with a 15% working interest. Petro-Canada Oil Sands Inc. (PCOSI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Petro-Canada, is the contract operator for the project.

^* Upgrader: unit which transforms heavy oil into lighter synthetic fuel.