Thermal Recovery of Oil and Bitumen by Roger M. Butler

Thermal Recovery of Oil and Bitumen Roger M. Butler ebook
Page: 496
Publisher:
Format: pdf
ISBN: 0139149538, 9780139149535

In the SAGD well laterals, Cenovus runs 7-in. The Alberta government believes that current technologies can recover only 169 billion barrels, leaving the bigger prize of 1.8 trillion barrels of bitumen locked beneath the province's soil. New technologies hold the key to .. Costs for recovering bitumen with in situ methods continue to decline, and new technologies are bound to reduce costs further, according to Harbir Chhina, executive vice-president enhanced oil development and new resource plays for Cenovus Energy Inc., Calgary. As they note the trade off the thermal inertia of the oceans. Image source:US EIA of oil sand assets in Alberta. This apparently paradoxical situation is occurring because supplies of conventional crude oil have peaked while growing economies in South America have increased demand for refined fuel. Slotted liners that hang on a thermal packer in 95⁄8-in. Cyclic Solvent Process (CSP) at Imperial Oil's Cold Lake Project Imperial Oil is proposing an alternative to thermal recovery processes to reduce direct greenhouse gas emissions from production by more than 90%. Alberta's vast oil sands — a mixture of sand, water and a semisolid form of petroleum called bitumen — account for 97 percent of Canada's proven crude oil reserves, making Canada the largest source of foreign oil for the world's According to a report by oil sands industry consulting firm Strategy West, “The primary disadvantage of steam-based thermal recovery techniques is the large amount of energy and water that must be consumed for the generation of steam. Thermal Projects Wabiskaw - Recognized the potential for cost-effective thermal recovery of a 2.0 billion barrel bitumen deposit in the Grand Rapids Formation within the Woodenhouse area. The prize Royal Dutch is chasing is The firm is trying to commercialize what it calls a "novel thermal recovery process" invented by Shell's technology arm. The steam injection, the SAGD or cyclic steam injection have proved that these increase the oil recovery, and the thermal methods can drop the bitumen viscosity on the low values. There are currently two main categories of processes for in situ—i.e., underground, without mining—thermal recovery of bitumen and heavy oil: steam injection and combustion. The company, through a secretive Calgary-based subsidiary called Sure Northern Energy Ltd., is working to unlock an estimated 60 billion barrels of raw bitumen — more than 100 kilometres west of the oil sands epicentre around Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta. It will take a millennium to bring the atmosphere, the shallow waters and deeper ocean waters into thermal equilibrium on account of all of the energy the oceans have already stored. Laricina Energy points out in a presentation, Strategies for Cheaper Bitumen, the rate of oil recovery is a function of the (time averaged) reservoir temperature and that the optimal recovery temperature is in the range of 150oC.