Canadian oil-sands

In addition to the significant consumption of coal and lignite, petroleum, and natural gas, several countries utilize modest quantities of alternative fossil fuels. Canada obtains some of its energy from the Athabasca tar sands development (the Great Canadian Oil Sands Project). Oil shale is burned at... 

The Great Canadian Oil Sands, Ltd. (GCO) (Sun Oil Co.) has been operating a plant at Eort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, since 1967. Initially, some 8050 t/d (55,000 bbl/d) of synthetic cmde oil was produced from coking (158) with the project expanding to 9220 t/d (63,000 bbl/d). Since 1978, Syncmde Canada has been producing ca 22,000 m /d (140,000 bbl) synthetic cmde oil by fluid coking from their plant at Cold Lake, Alberta, Canada (159) with expansion planned for ca 35,000 m /d (225,000 bbl/d). 

Figure 3.13. Geographical distribution of Canadian oil sands (Wikipedia Commons, 2007).

Despite the considerable growth of the Canadian oil-sand industry in recent years, there are still several difficulties that could impede the future development of the industry. Some key challenges are discussed next.15... 

Soderbergh, B., Robelius, F. and Aleklett, K. (2006). A Crash Program Scenario for the Canadian Oil Sands Industry. Uppsala, Sweden Uppsala University. 

Despite the considerable growth of the Canadian oil sands industry in recent years, there are still several difficulties that could impede the future development of this industry for instance, the heavy reliance on natural gas and water, which are necessary for both the extraction of bitumen from oil sands and its upgrading to synthetic oil, as well as the associated high emissions of C02. For nearly a century, the oil shale in the western United States has been considered a possible substitute source for conventional crude oil. If a technology can be developed to recover oil... 

The presence of the oil sands has been known for many years and attempts to exploit the deposits commercially go back as far as the turn of the century. These attempts included such endeavours as those by Bitumount, Abasand and others. Dr. Karl A. Clarke, who worked on tar sands over a period of many years with the Alberta Research Council, successfully developed the hot water process used in the GCOS and Syncrude operations. Currently the Great Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. plant is operating at design capacity of 45,000 BPCD and Syncrude Canada Ltd. is in the process of starting-up its operation north of Fort McMurray. 

Canadian oil sand processing plants have been developed by Syncrude and Suncor for extraction and upgrading of tar sand bitumen into fuel. Aboveground surface mining and in-situ methods have been developed to recover raw material. Bitumen recovery from surface mined oil sand requires conditioning in order to free the bitumen from the sand matrix. 

Statement 6. This is a fairly obvious comment, but it has serious implication in the selection of the slurrying time. Both the lump size and temperature vary in the feed to the slurrying unit, and the selection of an optimum time is difficult. Useful experimental data were presented by Great Canadian Oil Sands in 1967 (7). 

The pentane extract from the Athabasca bituminous sand obtained from the quarry of Great Canadian Oils Sands, Ltd. 

Kunzig, R. (2009) National Geographic, 215 (3), 38-59. See also http //ngm. nationalgeographic.com/2009/03/ Canadian-oil-sands/kunzig-text (accessed 7 April 2009). 

CANADIAN OIL SANDS TRUST CANADIAN SOLAR INC CANON INC... 

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BRITISH ENERGY GROUP PLC BRITISH NUCLEAR FUELS PLC BROOKFIELD ASSET MANAGEMENT INC CABOT CORPORATION CAITHNESS ENERGY LLC C ALPINE CORPORATION CAMECO CORPORATION CANADIAN OIL SANDS TRUST CANADIAN SOLAR INC CANON INC... 

Syncrude Project Syncrude Sweet Blend Canadian Oil Sands Trust Imperial Oil Resources Petro-Canada Oil Gas Canadian Oil Sands Limited ConocoPhillips Company Nexen Inc... 

Canadian Oil Sands Trust SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD CANDU ATOMIC ENERGY OF CANADA LIMITED Canon Ecology Industry, Inc. CANON INC Canon Information Systems Co., Ltd. CANON INC Canon Marketing Japan, Inc. CANON INC Capstone MicroTurbines CAPSTONE TURBINE CORP... 

SX-16 Nightsun SPECTROLAB INC SX-5 Starburst SPECTROLAB INC Syncmde Canada, Ltd. CANADIAN OIL SANDS TRUST... 

Emulsions may contain not just oil, water, and emulsifier (usually a surfactant), but also solid particles, and even gas. Figure 1.3 shows a practical O/W emulsion that contains suspended particles in addition to the oil drops. In the large Canadian oil sands mining and processing operations bitumen is separated from the sand matrix, in large tumblers, as an emulsion of oil dispersed in water, and then further separated from the tumbler slurry by a flotation process. The product of the flotation... 

Canadian oil sands. Viscosities are either essentially Newtonian (N) or else are reported... 

Emulsions may be encountered throughout all stages of the process industries. For example, in the petroleum industry (see Chapter 11) both desirable and undesirable emulsions permeate the entire production cycle, including emulsion drilling fluid, injected or in situ emulsions used in enhanced oil-recovery processes, wellhead production emulsions, pipeline transportation emulsions, and refinery process emulsions [2], Such emulsions may contain not just oil and water, but also solid particles and even gas, as occur in the large Canadian oil sands mining and processing operations [2-4],... 

The large Canadian oil-sands surface-mining and water-based flotation processing operations involve a number of kinds of emulsions and foams in a variety of process steps. Whereas mineral ore flotation relies on wettability alteration and bubble attachment, oil and bitumen flotation rely more on attachment and filming to create an oleic foam. 

Shaw, R.C. Schramm, L.L. Czamecki, J. Suspensions in the Hot Water Flotation Process for Canadian Oil Sands in Suspensions, Fundamentals and Applications in the Petroleum Industry, Schramm, L.L. (Ed.), American Chemical Society Washington, 1996, pp. 639-675. 

Canadian Oil Sands Network for Research and Development Naphthenic Acids, Background Information Discussion Report Alberta Department of Energy Edmonton, AB, 65pp. 

To exemplify the problems of demulsification of oil, some steps in the recovery of bituminous oil from tar sands are considered. The Great Canadian Oil Sands, Ltd. (GCOS) Process has been described in various... 

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