Tar sands oil extraction process pdf

In 2008, production from alberta tar sands was at 1. Tar sands or oil sands are a lowgrade petroleum deposit, a very viscous mix of clay, sand, water and oilrich bitumen think asphalt. The hot water separation process oil sands albertas. Bitumen is made of hydrocarbonsthe same molecules in liquid oil and is used to produce gasoline and other petroleum products. Video of learn about efforts to minimize the environmental impact of tar sand also called oil sand extraction, notably in alberta.

This process is more complex and capitalintensive than conventional oil. Mehlberg amoco oil company naperville, illinois 60566 abstract a process has been investigated for solvent extraction of bitumen from sunnyside, utah, tar sands. Tar sands extraction process geopetrol equipment ltd. The oil is in the form of bitumen, a very heavy liquid or sticky black solid with a low melting temperature. A typical oil sands deposit in alberta contains on average about 10% bitumen, 5% water and 85% solids, mostly in the form of coarse silica sand. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and water, soaked with a dense and extremely viscous form of petroleum technically referred to as bitumen. Two tons of tar sands are required to produce one barrel of oil. Process for solvent extraction of bitumen from oil sand. These two oil sands processes techniques are described in more detail below. Conditioning starts the process of separating sand and bitumen and breaks apart any large pieces of oil sands.

One example is a legal challenge by the beaver lake cree nation that maintains the boom in tar sands extraction is destroying their hunting and fishing lands. Dec 16, 2016 ghg emissions from oil sands extraction were calculated considering projected production rates of bitumen from in situ or mine operations table 2, assuming an 80% bitumen yield to sco kresnvak et al. Tar sands also known as oil sands are a mixture of mostly sand, clay, water, and a thick, molasseslike substance called bitumen. Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world, behind only saudi arabia and venezuela. Although this process is friendlier to the local habitat, the burning of natural gas to create steam increases the emission risk by another 1015% over traditional crude extraction. It is a complex process of extraction and separation that is often harvested through.

These oil sands, hosted primarily in the mcmurray formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen a semisolid rocklike form of crude oil, silica sand, clay minerals, and water. On the presentation is the remarkably frank admission. Pulverization of the tar sands followed by agglomeration in a mechanical shaker resulted in spherical agglomerates having higher bitumen contents than the mined tar sand. Tar sands are an increasingly commonbut expensive and dirtysource of oil. These sands can be mined, and then processed, to remove the bitumen.

Waterbased bitumen extraction technology from mineable oil sands faces major challenges of high water usage and tailings disposal. In the present study, a process for solvent extraction of bitumen from athabasca oil sands was investigated. The athabasca oil sands, also known as the athabasca tar sands, are large deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil, located in northeastern alberta, canada roughly centred on the boomtown of fort mcmurray. Needless to state, now we have companies flocking to get a piece of the cake, or should we say tar sand. The separation of hydrocarbons from sand using ionic liquids. New extraction technique could replace sdse for bitumen. Finally, the united states and canada must work together to protect human health and the environment when regulating the extraction, transportation, and refinement of oil from tar sands and oil shale. Tar sands bitumen extraction by a hot water digestion.

The first step is the extraction of the heavy oil from the rock. The conditioning step replaces the step of conditioning using caustic soda previously used in tar sand extraction. Yet extracting the fossil fuel costs more than the profits its fetching. Seven of the 14 reported mining and plant extraction projects utilize solvent processes for extraction of the oil from the tar sand. The athabasca tar sands also known as oil sands are a very large source of heavy, viscous oil, known as bitumen, located in alberta, canada. Excellent powerpoint presentation on shale oils from geology. New process cleanly extracts oil from tar sands and fouled. The boreal forest tar sands area is incredibly important for birds as a breeding habitat and as a globally important flyway for a great abundance and diversity of wetlanddependent birds. Mar 18, 2011 new process cleanly extracts oil from tar sands and fouled beaches.

Us20256092a1 oil from oil sands extraction process. Once processed, then bitumen can be then refined into oil. Critical infrastructure requirements for establishment of a viable utah oil shaletar sands industry are also discussed. Learn more about oil sands and all types of energy at. Oil sands are actually found all over the world, and are sometimes referred to as tar sands or bituminous sands. The syncrude oil sands plant is seen north of fort mcmurray, alberta. How to make gasoline from tar sands, in six simple steps. This is consistent with the results on the same deposit as reported by kuarsingh and maharaj 1991. Extracted oil sands crude can then be refined into gasoline and other hydrocarbon products. Oil sands also contain fine solids and clays, typically in the range of 10 to 30% by weight. Shale oil is guesstimated as approximately half as efficient to produce as oil from tar sands. Tar sands, which are also known as oil sands, are a combination of clay, sand, water and bitumen a heavier form of oil. There are two ways in which we can obtain the tar sands in order to create oil.

Petroteqs oil sands extraction process has been designed utilizing good engineering practices and confirmed chemical and physical principles. A source of calcium andor magnesium ions can also be added. This policy focus has led the current administration. The extraction of heavy oil from trinidad tar sands using. Many are being affected by the oil sands development, suffering consequences that range from land rights or health issues to loss of livelihood. Here, the slurry is put through a separation process where sand sinks to the bottom and impure bitumen froth rises to the. The size of this reserve makes it the third largest oil deposit in the. To extract the bitumen, tar sands are normally stripmined, or mined with open pit methods. A study on solvent extraction of bitumen from nigerian tar sands using toluene was investigated 5. It is composed of sand, claw, water, and bitumen, which is an oil that is black and viscous.

Pdf an overview of oil sand tar sand extraction and. The process of oil sands basically consists of extraction either by open. Further, tar sands is a vast resource 314 billion barrels of technically recoverable bitumen lie below alberta, canada alone. It is demonstrated that bitumen can be separated from waterwet alberta oil sands and oilwet utah oil sands using a socalled analogue ionic liquid il based on deep eutectic mixtures of choline chloride and urea chclu together with a diluent such as naphtha. Tar sands also called oil sands are a mixture of sand, clay, water, and bitumen. Tar sands or oil sands are a lowgrade petroleum deposit, a very viscous mix of clay, sand, water and oil rich bitumen think asphalt. These oil sands, hosted primarily in the mcmurray formation, consist of a mixture of crude bitumen a semisolid rocklike form. Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or more technically bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit.

Abstract process economics program report 266 heavy oil. The oil sand is mixed with warm water called a slurry and transported by pipeline to an extraction facility. The extraction of heavy oil from trinidad tar sands using supercritical carbon dioxide. This resource requires special extraction methods to get it out of the ground and into a state where it is fluid enough for transportation by pipeline. A process for the extraction of oil from tar sands consists of contacting the tar sand in an extraction zone with a paraffinic hydrocarbon solvent having from 5 to 9 carbon atoms at a ratio of from 2 to 10 parts solvent per part of bitumen present in the tar sand.

A system for extracting bitumen from oil sands includes an extractor tank having a reaction chamber. Our oil sands business recovers bitumen through surface mining and steam injection technologies and upgrades it into refineryready crude oil products. Due to the difference in depth, recovery of oil sands ore calls for different techniques. In alberta the amount of water required to extract and process bitumen from oil sands is of the same order of magnitude as the provinces water consumption for irrigated agriculture. The process can also be used to extract oil and tar from beach sand after oil spills, such as the exxon valdez and deepwater. Introduction the rapid and sustained rise of the cost of foreign oil has caused the bush administration and the energy sector to look within americas borders for domestic oil resources. The extraction and refining of tar sands oil produces considerably more greenhouse gas emissions compared to traditional oil production through drilling and pumping crude from underground deposits. Introduction to enhanced recovery methods for heavy oil. Tar sands 7% bitumen by weight from the tar sands and oil shale contain relatively low concentrations of hydrocarbons. The process can also be used to extract oil and tar from beach sand after oil spills, such as the exxon valdez and deepwater horizon incidents.

The extraction of bitumenderived crude oil follows several steps. For example, the separation of bitumen from tar or oil sands involves large amounts of energy and. Extraction technology as in any other extraction problem, there are two basic approaches to the recovery of bitumen from tar sands. Instead, it must be extracted from the tar sands, an expensive and complex process. An input port is provided at the upper end of the extractor tank for the purpose of introducing oil sand into the reaction chamber. The alberta tar sands are one of the biggest oil reserves in the world. Many innovative chemical and engineering aspects have been incorporated into the process to achieve over 98% of bitumen extraction from the oil sands, and a greater than 99.

Environmental impacts of oil sands the environmental impact of the oil sands is an issue that has been extremely divisive. The volume of tar sands oil, combined with the energy intensive extraction techniques, means that producing and burning all of this tar sands oil would mean assured climate catastrophe. This process involves intense agitation of the tar sand in a hot caustic solution and subsequent separation of the bitumen by a modified froth flotation technique. The pros and cons of tar sands show us that shortterm gains happen, but at the expense of longterm problems. Tar sands steam extraction lessens footprint, but environmental costs remain. The technical term for the oil extracted from tar sands is crude bitumen, which is defined as a viscous thick, heavy oil that will not flow to a well in its natural state. Oil sands is a form of heavy oil found in sand and rock primarily in the athabasca region of northern alberta, canada. Karl clarks work for the research council of alberta concentrated on developing the hot water method of separating the oil sands into its component parts. The accessible ore of oil sands is located 50 to 200 m from the surface. The difference is that the accelerated solvent extraction technique introduces a pressure component which, when combined with heat, enables the extraction process to occur in about onetenth the time and thus shows potential to replace sdse as the industry standard for bitumen extraction from oil sands. But the process also diminishes one of the best car. Tar sands are mined and processed to extract bitumen, which is then refined into oil. Introduction to enhanced recovery methods for heavy oil and tar sands, second edition, explores the importance of enhanced oil recovery eor and how it has grown in recent years thanks to the increased need to locate unconventional resources such as heavy oil and shale. Nov 16, 1999 the present invention is directed toward a tar sands extraction process and, in particular, a hot water extraction process for tar sands and a conditioning solution for use therein.

Thus, it can be argued that in this state the oil sands industry was able to develop because the region is relatively rich in water resources. Melting bitumen in place is less unsightly than mining tar sands, but increasing efficiency. In this process, oil sand is mixed with light hydrocarbon solvents, and the solventbitumen solution is separated from the mineral solids by centrifugal. The biggest environmental impact may be all the energy required to extract the oil from the tar sands the burning of the resulting fuels in. In fact, scientists estimate that tar sands oil creates as much as 37 percent more emissions than conventional crude oil struzik, 2016. The alberta tar sands hold much of canadas oil wealth. How tar sands oil is produced high oil prices and technological advances have made it economically viable to ramp up oil production from canadas tar sands. One way is by mining on the surface less than 100 meters deep. The separation or extraction of hydrocarbons such as oil and bitumen from soil, sand, or other forms of mineral matter is a difficult and expensive process that also results in environmental problems associated with the disposal of waste products. Environmental impacts of oil sands energy education.

Tar sands crude is heavy crude oil mixed with sand, clay and other hydrocarbon mixtures. Development of utah oil shale and tar sands resources. The industrys commitment to development of utahs oil shaletar sands resources in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner is clearly stated. Extraction of bitumen from oil sands using deep eutectic. Mcgaw et al the extraction of heavy oil from trinidad tar sands using supercritical carbon dioxide. Most of these are unique patented or proprietary processes. Crude bitumen is extracted from the mined tar sands through a process that mixes the tar sands with hot water to separate the bitumen from the sand. The problem is that oil sands producers use more water a year than the city of calgary and its 1. This special filtering process yields relatively clear water that can be channeled. Throughout the world, considerable oil reserves are locked in the form of tar sands, also called bitumen sands. When mixed with hot water, the oil sands separates into layers, with the most densethe sandsinking to the bottom, and the. Unfortunately, petroleum engineers and managers arent always wellversed. As with the extraction and use of any fossil fuel, negative environmental effects arise as a result of the extraction, upgrading, and processing of bitumen from the oil sands. Unfortunately the rapidly expanding industrial tar sands oil extraction operations increasingly place these birds at risk.

The second way is to heat the bitumen causing the viscosity to decrease allowing it to flow into a well, which is then accessible to the oil and gas company. Oil sands, also known as tar sands, are sediments or sedimentary rocks composed of sand, clay minerals, water, and bitumen. Comparing venezuelan and canadian heavy oil and tar sands. American oil shales are also located in arid areas which are more ecologically sensitive than the tar sand areas of canada. Abstract process economics program report 266 heavy oil from. A hot water extraction process for extracting bitumen from tar sands is taught wherein the tar sand is conditioned using an alkali metal bicarbonate, an alkali metal carbonate and a liquid hydrocarbon. The oil sands give alberta the third largest reserves in the world, but extracting the oil is energyintensive and destructive. To extract the bitumen from the sands, youll need to crush the sands with. Suncors upgrading operations process bitumen into highervalue synthetic crude oil and diesel fuel using two upgraders at its oil sands site in fort mcmurray.