Modern steel design and construction in Canada's oil sands industry

The continuous improvements in Canada’s oil sands industrial performance have generated engineering challenges that are rarely encountered in conventional oil and gas projects. Significant developments in steel construction procedures have evolved over the past few years to cope with these challenges. New design guidelines have been developed to modernize structural steel design and construction procedures. These procedures have been successfully implemented in oil sands projects that worth billions of dollars. The author was involved in the design developments for these projects and would like to share with readers the difficulties and solutions used to cope with structural challenges that are not addressed by North American or European codes of practice.