Alberta's oil sands. It's the world's third largest oil reserves, 161 billion recoverable barrels in the ground. They're are huge part of Canada's economy, contributing trillions to Canada's GDP over the past 50 years, generating billions annually in government taxes, revenues and royalties, supporting small and medium-sized businesses from …
Oil sands operators pay royalties on crude bitumen after the sand and other impurities have been removed. Crude bitumen is worth less than crude oil because bitumen is more difficult to refine than lighter crude, and it does not naturally flow through a pipeline. Diluent is added to allow bitumen to flow through pipelines to market.
The Alberta Tar Sands, located in northern Canada, contain the largest deposits of bitumen oil in the world. The tar sands hold a mixture of sand, water, ... Even though these open-pit mines are massive in size, they only make up 10% of bitumen extraction in Alberta. Miners use large shovels to scoop the oil and sand mixture into gigantic ...
Economic Growth. Alberta's first commercial oil sands operation started in 1967. The exploration of oil sands significantly increased Canada's total oil reserves from approximately five billion barrels to an estimated 173 billion, meaning Canada has the third largest oil reserve in the world, with 97 per cent of the oil in the form of oil sands. The …
About 80% of Alberta's bitumen reserves are too deep to be mined and must be extracted in-place (or in-situ) using steam. Bitumen is heated and pumped out of the ground, leaving most of the solids behind. In-situ extraction has a much smaller footprint than oil sands mining, uses less water, and does not produce a tailings stream.
Athabasca oil sands – Canada's largest oil sand reserves. The oil sands typically consist of around 10% bitumen contained in a mixture of 83% silica sand, 4% water and 3% fluvial clay, in a layer 40–60m thick lying beneath clay, sand and a surface layer of muskeg (water-logged peat).
Bitumen extraction from oil sand ores in Alberta represents a megascale operation, which produces an oil supply for more than 30% of the overall Canadian oil demand at a speed of mining and processing more than 1000 tons of ore per minute currently. ... The classical commercial method for bitumen extraction is the hot water …
Semantic Scholar extracted view of "Hot Water Seperation of Bitumen from Alberta Bituminous Sand" by K. A. Clark et al. ... Enhanced Bitumen Extraction from Oil Sands Using Co2-Responsive Surfactant Combined with Low-Salinity Brine: Toward Cleaner Production Via Co2 Utilization.
The current state of knowledge on the fundamentals of bitumen recovery from Athabasca oil sands using water-based extraction methods is reviewed. Instead of investigating bitumen extraction as a black box, the bitumen extraction process has been discussed and analyzed as individual steps: Oil sand lump size reduction, bitumen liberation, …
In the present study, solvent extraction of bitumen from Xinjiang oil sands was investigated using solvents, such as alkanes, toluene, and chloroform, and mixed solvents, such as n-hexane–ethyl acetate and cyclohexane–methyl ethyl ketone (MEK). The n-heptane asphaltene content in the extracted bitumen was measured by saturate, …
From deposit geology to bitumen extraction, oil pricing and beyond, a high-level overview of Alberta's oil sands, and Canada's energy landscape. ... Oil sands are a loose, unconsolidated mixture of sand, clays and water, saturated with bitumen. Oil sands are mostly coarse silica sand, about 80%. Fine solids and clays make up 5%, while …
Before bitumen can be transported to global markets, it must first be isolated from these other deposits and then liquefied. Typically, producers extract bitumen using one of two methods: an in-situ process known as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) and an above-ground mining process. Typical oil sand production can be energy-intensive
Bitumen can be extracted using two methods depending on how deep the deposits are below the surface: in-situ production or open pit mining. In-situ …
Robust aqueous–nonaqueous hybrid process for bitumen extraction from mineable Athabasca oil sands. Energy & Fuels, 26 (5), pp.2920-2927. Ambient temperature (25 …
Process Description. During the bitumen extraction process, oil sands delivered from the mine are crushed and mixed with hot water and thoroughly agitated. The resulting slurry …
An oil sands mine in Alberta, Canada adjacent to boreal forest outside of Fort McMurray. ... To extract bitumen from the sand, oil companies heat it and then treat it in a slurry of water and ...
Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2G6, Canada. Search for more papers by this author. Zhenghe Xu, Corresponding Author. ... Clay minerals such as montmorillonite and kaolinite are considered as fine solids that could adversely affect bitumen extraction from oil sands. Colloidal forces between ...
Although not used commercially, a nonaqueous extraction process is of great interest to extract bitumen from the Alberta oil sands due to its potential advantages, such as high bitumen recovery ...
The role of surface hydrophobicity in water-based oil sand extraction is examined from the perspective of mineral flotation separation. Although anionic carboxylates (sulphonates) released from bitumen are helpful for charging bitumen and liberating bitumen from sand grains, their presence in oil sand slurries tends to make …
MATERIALS, INTERFACES, AND ELECTROCHEMICAL PHENOMENA Role of Fine Clays in Bitumen Extraction from Oil Sands Jianjun Liu, Zhenghe Xu, and Jacob Masliyah Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2G6, Canada DOI 10.1002/aic.10174 Published online in Wiley InterScience …
A novel approach, based on the doping of rich estuarine oil sands with calcium and/or clays, was developed to study bitumen extraction. The batch flotation tests showed that the addition of either calcium ions up to 40 p.p.m., or kaolinite, illite and montmorillonite clays at 1 wt% of oil sands processed had marginal effect on bitumen …
Investigations of nonaqueous extraction (NAE) of bitumen from minable oil sands have been extensively revisited in the past decade as an alternative to Clark hot water extraction (CHWE). Significant advances have been achieved in understanding NAE processes at bench and pilot scales, although many questions remain regarding the …
Surface mining is a technique used to obtain bitumen from oil sands where the oil sands deposits are located fairly close to the surface. If the reserves are shallow enough, earth moving equipment can dig out oil sand for processing. These deposits must be within 75 meters of the surface to be mined in this fashion. Resources recoverable by this type of …
In-situ extraction methods are used to recover bitumen that lies too deep beneath the surface for mining (greater than 75 metres underground). Currently, 80% of oil sands reserves are accessible via in-situ techniques. ... At the extraction plant more hot water is added to this mixture of sand, clay, bitumen, and water in a large separation ...
The Clark hot water extraction (CHWE) process (Clark and Pasternack, 1932; Clark, 1939) has been the main method of bitumen extraction, including crushing the extracted material, adding hot water ...
InnoTech Alberta, Heavy Oil and Oil Sands, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Correspondence. Joe Z. Zhou, InnoTech Alberta, Heavy Oil and Oil Sands, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. ... Bitumen extraction recovery increased significantly with the presence of nanobubbles in the system. The role of improved flotation hydrodynamics in bitumen …
HOW IS THE OIL REMOVED FROM THE OIL SAND? Once mined, bitumen is separated from the sand using a hot water extraction process that was patented in the 1920s by Dr. Karl A. Clark. Oil sand is mixed with hot water to form a slurry (a very thick liquid), which is pipelined to a separation vessel. This is called hydrotransport.
Jacob Absher attempts in situ extraction of oil from oil sands. Absher's set-up on Saline Creek, near Fort McMurray, ... Syncrude opens oil sands mining and bitumen upgrading mega-project in northeastern Alberta. ... Freshly mined Alberta oil sand contains about 2 to 5% water and 10 to 17% oil, the balance being mineral matter. ...
To recover bitumen, the processes of aqueous extraction are used: a "dying out" classical process with treatment by steam and hot water with caustic addition (conditioning) in rotating drums – tumblers (hot water extraction process) and novel less energy-intensive processes (low energy extraction process) occurring at lower …
Our technical knowledge and lab testing capabilities assess bitumen extraction from mined oil sands, enhance the processing of fluids treatment (froth, oil, and water), tailings management, and add value to bitumen through partial upgrading and the generation of …
