BP (NYSE:BP, Husky (TSE:HSE) Starting Oil Sands Work

BP Plc (NYSE:BP) and Husky Energy Inc. (TSE:HSE) are ready to launch the first phase of the Sunrise Energy Project in the oil sands in the province of Alberta, Canada.

Just under $2 billion will be spent on contracts for the job, according to Husky.

Overall the first phase will cost about $2.5 billion, which BP has committed to pay for, significantly under the early expenditure estimates of C$4 billion.

Husky is much more conservative in their daily production estimates than BP, saying they see production reaching about 60,000 barrels a day, while BP has a much higher estimate of as high as 200,000 barrels of oil a day in production. Those figures are based on it coming about sometime in 2014.

BP says there are about 3 billion barrels of oil within the Sunrise project.