Fort Mac

At lunchtime on Monday a project manager (Scott) and I winged our way to the cold province of Alberta. In the afternoon we went to say giday to the guys at the KCB Calgary office. I have one project on the go for the Calgary office and will probably have another soon so it was good to meet them face to face. I think it was about -10C which felt pretty damn cold but it was about to get colder...

We had a rather quick sleep and got up at 4am to get ready to catch a Suncor (the name of the mining company) jet up to Fort McMurray. It was pretty incredible that these mining companies are so big and move so many people around that it warrants them having their own flight service a couple of times a day. Apparently Shell even have their own runway on one of their mining sites. When we landed it was about -25C and it hovered around there all day. No moisture though, I heard that in Vancouver it feels about 10C colder than it actually is because of the humidity in the air. We had a beautiful clear day and no wind. Apparently thats how it normally is: Bloody cold but with clear blue sky. The wind can be a killer though, easily adding (or subtracting depending on how you look at it) another 20C so they can see temperatures of -50C pretty easily including windchill.

We were visiting a site that is a green field (brand new) mine that is under development. I think they are set to start mining in 2017 or something so there is not much equipment around at the moment. We got to see some trucks driving around but they were 777's which "only" have a payload capacity of 40 tonnes. Later on there will be 797's driving around which have a capacity of 400 tonnes. Crikey dickens. KCB were responsible for the de-watering wells that are required to remove the ground water so that excavation can begin for the "crusher" facility. Later we will also be involved with the seepage wells to capture process affected water (any water that falls on the mine site) and prevent it from seeping into the local ecosystem.

It was a pretty cool place to be. I got a photo of some sun-dogs which is caused by ice crystals in the air refracting the light:

It really gave me a new definition of cold. Every time I got out of the truck my breath caught in my throat until it got used to breathing -25C air. It took about 20min for me to start to get uncomfortably cold when we were standing outside the truck and I was wearing 2 thermal singlets, 2 layers of marino, a microfleece jersey, a softshell and a plastic windbreaker.

The camp we stayed in, Beaver Lodge, was pretty crazy huge too. I think it could house around 5000 people (that could be wrong, seems ridiculous now that I write it) and supplied 3 meals a day for all of the lodgers. It was a pretty flash one though and we had our own bathrooms. Most of the camps that the workers stay in have shared facilities. The food was pretty good too. I had 5 different types of dessert. Here is a picture of the hallway of our wing:

There was about 10 wings like that connected by one gigantic hallway which led to the dining room and reception:

The photos don't really do it justice. I could see the end of the hallway to our wing but I couldn't even see the end of the main hallway.

The second day it got even colder, around -30C to -35C we think but luckily still no wind. Truck Dashboard temperature:

The night before I had my first experience plugging the block heater of the truck in. In the morning the truck started no worries but it was pretty grumpy with us and had flashing handbrake and tyre pressure warning lights. It seemed like it was saying "OK, I'll take you where you wanna go but I'm not happy about it". Some people say you can't really feel the difference in temperature after -20C but I got much colder much quicker outside. I could only really last about 10min with all my layers on. It was amazing though that there are guys just working out in it. They must be just well adjusted to it. Just madness.

One other interesting thing is that the Fort Mac airport has direct flights to Mexico and Las Vegas. It makes perfect sense but it is pretty crazy to think about getting in the plane at -30C and getting arriving at 30C. It seems that just about everything that this mining gig influences makes the mind boggle. Equipment, flights, accommodation, weather, infrastructure.

So that was my field trip. I am really stoked to have had the opportunity so early to go and check it out and it will really help when I am designing stuff to have experienced the conditions. Luckily electricity doesn't mind the cold too much! Everyone else has to remember to put heaters on things like pipes and pumps to stop them freezing!