Suncor oil sands plant outage means less light oil

CALGARY, Alberta, Sept 2 (Reuters) - Suncor Energy Inc (SU.TO) said on Tuesday it expects a processing unit at one of its oil sands upgrading plants to be off line for up to 90 days, changing the mix of its output but not cutting overall production.

Suncor, which runs Canada's second largest oil sands mining and synthetic crude operations, said a hydrogen plant at the northern Alberta site suffered an unscheduled outage in August.

Chief Executive Rick George said the shutdown of the plant, which is connected to Upgrader 2, will mean lower volumes of light, low-sulfur crude.

"Total volumes still look to be in that 240,000-250,000 (barrels a day) for the year. The trouble is it's going to be a lot more sour and heavy than we would have thought at this particular point because we have less hydrogen to upgrade that crude," George told an investment conference in New York.

The company, which has already been hit with production shortfalls this year, said it pumped out 221,000 barrels a day of oil sands-derived crude in August.

Earlier this year, Suncor cut its production estimates from as much as 285,000 barrels a day. It has also pushed plans to produce 350,000 barrels a day back to late 2009.

He said the hydrogen plant outage could last 60-90 days. (Reporting by Jeffrey Jones; editing by Rob Wilson)