Eight leases totaling 258,000 hectares are held by Syncrude, an oil and gas mining joint venture 40 kilometers north of Fort McMurray. It is Canada's largest single source and the world's largest producer of synthetic crude from oil sands.

The original Base Mine, the North Mine, and the Aurora Mine, located 35 kilometers to the north and close to Mildred Lake on lease 17, are the three mines that make up the consortium. Oil sands from all three are treated at the upgrader facility, which is also situated on lease 17.

Japan Crude Oil Refinery Market(36.74 percent), Imperial Oil Resources (25 percent), Suncor Energy Oil and Gas Partnership (12 percent), Sinopec Oil Sands Partnership (9.03 percent), Nexen Oil Sands Partnership (7.23 percent), Mocal Energy (5 percent), and Murphy Oil (5 percent) are the participants in the Syncrude Canadian Oil Sands Partnership.

Since the company began producing synthetic crude oil in 1978, it has undergone numerous expansions. In 2006, the Syncrude 21 Stage 3 expansion, which cost CA$8.4 billion, was finished. The Aurora Train 2 began operating as part of the expansion, as did the initial two-stage expansion of Syncrude's Mildred Lake upgrade.

Athabasca oil sands, Canada's largest oil sand reserves, typically consist of around 10% bitumen in a mixture of 83% silica sand, 4% water, and 3% fluvial clay. The oil sands are 40–60 meters thick and lie beneath clay, sand, and a surface layer of muskeg, which is water-logged peat.

Surface mining is feasible because the overburden to the north of Fort McMurray is relatively shallow—typically less than 75 meters.

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It is believed that the same geological forces that formed the Rocky Mountains drove light crude from southern Alberta to the north-east, resulting in the formation of the Athabasca resource.

"It produces nearly 350,000 barrels per day and is ranked as the world's largest producer of synthetic crude from oil sands."
The deposits accumulated in incised valleys within Devonian strata, which were later altered by the rising sea levels of the early Cretaceous, as the initial crude gradually changed into more viscous bitumen.

The McMurray Formation, a lower Cretaceous oil-bearing quartz sandstone beneath the Clearwater Formation's marine clays and Beaverhill Lake Group's Devonian limestone, is the primary focus of Syncrude's mining operations.

The current North and Aurora mines have taken the place of the former mine areas, which are now largely depleted.

With proven and probable reserves totaling 4.9 billion barrels of synthetic crude oil within potential resources that could reach 9,000Mbbl, the company is the largest single holder of oil sands leases in the Fort McMurray region (lease holdings 10, 12, 17, 22, 29, 30, 31 and 34).

There are approximately 5.4 billion barrels of prospective resources and 2.2 billion barrels of contingent resources. In most cases, it takes 2 tons of oil sand to produce 1 barrel of synthetic crude oil.

Shovel-and-truck mining, which offers greater flexibility, has largely replaced Syncrude's initial mining method, which utilized bucket-wheel reclaimers and draglines. Run-of-mine oil sand is dug directly from the pit faces and transported to in-pit crushing stations before being slurried and pumped to the bitumen extraction plants using a fleet of PH 4100 mining shovels and Terex/OK RH400 hydraulic excavators. This hydrotransport system, developed by Syncrude, has revolutionized the district's mining operations' material handling.

At the Mildred Lake facility, where Syncrude processes oil sand alongside oil sand slurry from the North mine and Aurora froth that arrives via the hydrotransport system, the bitumen is separated from the sand using a warm-water extraction process.

In tumblers, oil sand is combined with hot water and caustic soda to form a slurry that is prepared for bitumen separation. The blended slurry is then fed into four primary separation vessels, where the bitumen froth rises to the top and the sand settles. Large particles are then rejected on vibrating screens.

Before being combined with the primary bitumen froth for further de-aeration, heating, and treatment, the middlings are pumped to tailings oil recovery vessels, where the froth is recycled to the primary separation vessels.

The mixing that occurs during the transport of the slurry from the mine to the plant is sufficient to initiate the separation process, which results in the recovery of more than ninety percent of the bitumen resource. The feed for upgrading to synthetic crude oil is made from the bitumen froth that results.

Upgrades Vacuum distillation or a coking process that removes some of the feedstock's carbon content produces hydrocarbon gases, naphtha, and gas oils from raw bitumen, which is then transformed into synthetic crude. Adding hydrogen to the feedstock is an alternative method that reduces the amount of surplus petroleum coke produced. Syncrude Sweet Blend crude oil, a synthetic crude with a high naphtha content and low sulfide content, is the primary product of Syncrude. It is then sent to refineries in both the United States and Canada.

Production at Syncrude When operating at full capacity and in the best possible conditions, Syncrude's facilities have the nominal capacity to produce nearly 375,000 barrels per day. The Syncrude facility can produce 350,000 barrels per day on average under normal conditions, taking into account any necessary downtime.

The Base Mine can produce 7,250 tons per hour, the North Mine can produce 7,500 tons per hour, and the Aurora Mine can produce 11,000 tons per hour; Mildred Lake has a daily processing capacity of 230,000 barrels. 94.25 million barrels of synthetic crude were manufactured in 2006. Syncrude recently developed a new and improved product called Syncrude Sweet Premium, which currently supplies 15% of Canada's petroleum requirements.

Impact on the environment The oil sands industry's expansion in northern Alberta has unavoidably had a significant impact on the natural environment, which primarily consists of boreal forest. The separation process's sand tailings have been stored, while the fine tailings are kept in large ponds.

Additionally, "Syncrude has successfully introduced a herd of native wood bison to its reclamation areas."
Around 3,000 ha of Syncrude's older waste piles have been turned back into pasture and forest thanks to a system for stabilizing the surface of these ponds that makes it possible for revegetation to begin.

Syncrude has also managed, with the help of a nearby First Nations community, to successfully bring a herd of native wood bison to its reclamation areas.

Overburden and tailings are currently returned to worked-out pit areas as part of the process of land reclamation.

The next phase of expansion for the Syncrude project will allow the project to reach full production of up to 500,000 barrels per day. The next phase will include the construction of two additional trains on undeveloped leases known as Aurora South, which are currently under planning and cost estimation.

Additionally, the SO2 reduction project that Syncrude announced in September 2008 and made operational at the end of 2011 contributes to a 60 percent reduction in emissions.