Great 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). 

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. 

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. 

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... 

There are two processes that have been applied to the production of liquids from Athabasca bitumen. In this respect, these processes are proven but are not necessarily the best or ultimate processes. Delayed coking is practised at the Suncor (formerly Great Canadian Oil Sands) plant, whereas Syncrude employs a fluid coking process which produces less coke than the delayed coking in exchange for more liquids and gases (Table 5). 

Industrial chemical processes manufacture products that differ in chemical content from process feeds, which are naturally occurring raw materials, plant or animal matter, intermediates, chemicals of commerce, or wastes. Great Canadian Oil Sands, Ltd. (GCOS), in a process shown in Fig. 1.1, produces naphtha, kerosene, gas oil, fuel gas, plant fuel, oil, coke, and sulfur from Canadian Athabasca tar sands, a naturally occurring mixture of sand grains, fine clay, water, and a crude hydrocarbon called bitumen. This is one of a growing number of processes designed to produce oil products from feedstocks other than petroleum. 

There is no consensus as to which model to use. Some have argued that the Wasp method was more suitable for coal, whereas the two-layer model was better for sand. This is based on the number of papers published on two-layer models for sand slurry mixtures, emanating from the great interest in Canadian oil sands. 

---