VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Lead shareholder and operator of Canada's newest oil sands mine Suncor announced on Monday that the new C$13.5-billion Fort Hills oil sands project, in Alberta, had started secondary extraction on Saturday.

Fort Hills, which is located about 90 km north of the country's oil capital, Fort McMurray, will continue to ramp up to its nameplate capacity of about 194 000 bbl/d, of which about 103 000 bbl/d is attributable to Suncor.

Suncor advised in a statement that the first of three trains from secondary extraction is now online and production on this train will continue to ramp up through the first quarter.

"With operations at Fort Hills now in continuous production, we've brought one of the best long-term growth projects in our industry into service and we're now focused on the safe and steady ramp-up through 2018," stated Suncor president and CEO Steve Williams.

At peak construction, Fort Hills employed an average of 7 900 people. Now in operation, Fort Hills employs about 1 400 direct employees and the majority have been hired from Alberta.

The Fort Hills project was sanctioned by the Fort Hills partners in 2013. The project was designed in stages in order to level load resources through construction and development. This phased approach provided for a progressive turnover of assets to operations over time, avoiding a commissioning bottleneck in the final stages of the project, and enabling early testing of the mine, primary extraction and utilities facilities.

The project has already completed five test runs of the plant, producing 1.4-million barrels of froth.

The second and third trains of secondary extraction are being insulated and expected to start up in the first half of 2018, as planned. Fort Hills remains on track to reach 90% capacity by the end of 2018. Suncor has guided toward cash operating costs per barrel for Fort Hills of C$20/bl to C$30/bl by the fourth quarter of 2018.

Fort Hills is operated by Suncor, which holds a 53.06% interest in the project. The Fort Hills joint venture (JV) partners are Total E&P Canada (26.05%) and Teck Resources (20.89%). Fort Hills bitumen production is blended for shipment to market at the East Tank Farm Development, a JV between Fort McKay First Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation and Suncor.