Modelling and simulation of the influence of operational parameters on oilsands processing plant equipment reliability

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During a recent meeting with a senior executive of a major Canadian mining company the applicant was informed that their worldwide maintenance costs were 1.25 billion dollars. Historically, mining has struggled to understand, model and change the parameters that influence their maintenance costs. The applicant recently finished a one year sabbatical during which extensive time was spent working with the processing plant reliability group of a major oil sands company. During this tenure it became apparent that there is limited and practically no models that describe the influence of plant operational parameters on plant equipment maintenance and reliability. In fact this is true of mining process plants in general. An interesting observation with regards to oil sands ithat it is the integration of two industries oil production and mining. In your typical oil processing plant the operating environment is stable and they will run for years without major outages. In a typical mining processing plant the equipment is subjected to a significantly more dynamic operating environment and consequently a higher frequency of maintenance outages. When you combine a mining environment with an oil processing plant the result is an extremely variable operating environment whith plant maintenance costs in excess of 1 billion dollars per year for three existing operations in Fort McMurray Alberta.