SK Engineering and Construction Co. said Monday it has won a $2.55 billion order to build the world’s largest oil sand plant in Canada.

The agreement with Fort Hills Energy L.P. ― a partnership between Canadian oil companies Suncor and TECK and France’s Total ― calls for processing 180,000 barrels of bitumen from the Fort Hill region in Alberta.

SK E&C, South Korea’s eighth-largest builder, said the plant is being built in a region that is estimated to hold some 3 billion barrels of bitumen, enough to keep the plant in operation for more than 50 years. The plant will make use of the so-called paraffin mining method to separate the petroleum resource from sand, clay and water to raise the purity of the petroleum product. In the past, oil sand plants used naphtha, which is less effective.

Before winning the contract, SK E&C had conducted basic Front-End Engineering Design work for the site.

It had already started work on the facility-building project after it was tapped as the engineering, procurement and construction management partner by Fort Hill Energy in early July.

The company said the overall building of the plant will take some 40 months, with work to be completed in late 2017.

Oil sand, or bituminous sand, is a type of unconventional petroleum resource. Bitumen deposits have been found in countries around the world, but very large, commercially viable quantities have generally been found in Canada. Canada’s oil sand reserves may reach 168 billion barrels, or 90 percent of the global total.

“The Fort Hills contract can open new opportunities for the builder in Canada’s oil sand development field,” the company said.

At present, the North American company produces 1.8 million barrels of oil sand per day, but this will be increased to 3.4 million barrels by 2020. (Yonhap)