From the looks of it, no one’s going to be processing bitumen on the Tavaputs Plateau this year.
US Oil Sands has promised investors they’d achieve commercial production by the final quarter of 2015.
Let’s take a look at what’s happening out there.
Though there’s personnel on the production site, it seems impossible to run graders and other machinery in all this muck.
The entrance to Children’s Legacy Camp (the area they’ve been clearcutting and grading) is a slushpile.
The processing site has a nice layer of snow on the ground. There’s been no paving work so far, meaning it’s awfully hard to run machines over this slushy ground too. Paving site roads (a goal outlined in the mine plan) sure seemed like one of the crucial stepping stones to building capacity to work all winter and achieve commercial production.
New conveyors are in, but kind of just sitting there in the snowy field.
The Legacy area has been quiet. At 8,000 feet, it seems awfully hard to dig up this frozen tundra in the winter.
Seems like a whole lot of investor dollars being spent on worker salaries, with the potential for very minimal results.
If seeing all this destruction moves you, now is the time to jump in! Together we can win this fight.
Thanks for the update. Great photos! USOS has shipped a lot of equipment to the processing site judging by the photo of the facility you took. They seem to be going for broke on this. I feel that land defenders could certainly impact their schedule negatively. I, for one, would be happy to part of that kinda thing. I’m hoping the Tavaputs winter will be severe and unrelenting but we can’t count on that.