Heavy Oil Sand In.-Situ Pilot Plants In Alberta (Past And Present)

Abstract

This paper will review the history of in situ pilot plant efforts towards the recovery of bitumen from the major oil sand deposits of Alberta. The review will be based on published information and will describe the location of the plants, the manner of operation, the estimated costs involved and the technical area under investigation. The currently operating pilot plants and future plans for new in situ pilots will also be described. INTRODUCTION This paper will present a survey of the planned, current and completed in situ pilot plant operations in the Alberta Oil Sands. The aim of the review is to provide an overview of the current field projects and to provide background concerning completed in situ pilot plant programs. Before beginning a consideration of the individual plants it is necessary to set the stage for the review by looking at some of the problems and formation properties which are encountered in the Alberta on Sands. Note that the term bitumen, tar and heavy oil are used interchangeably in this paper to describe hydrocarbon material with gravity less than 12 °API. The oil sands of Alberta, as shown in Figure 1, are located in four major deposits which cover an area of about 10.8 million acres in the northern half of the province. The total in place reserves are estimated to be 950 billion barrels(1) of which, 74 billion barrels or 8% of the total are covered by less than 150 feet of overburden and are considered suitable for economic surface mining. The surface mineable reserves are all located within the Athabasca deposit as indicated by the heavily shaded area in Figure 1. The amount of in place bitumen which has more than 500 feet of overburden and must be recovered by in situ methods is 10 times the surface mineable reserves; 741 billion barrels or 78% of the deposit. The remainder, 135 billion barrels are overlain by 150–500 ft. of overburden and it is uncertain at this time whether the heavy oil in these sands will be recovered by some form of mining or by novel in situ recovery methods. The consideration of the depth of the deposits points out the need for development of in situ recovery techniques in order to tap the majority of the reserves in the Alberta Oil Sands. RESERVOIR PROPERTIES The Alberta Oil Sand Reserves are situated in the Mannville Group of the Lower Cretaceous strata. All the oil sand deposits are quite heterogeneous, both laterally and vertically, with wide variations in oil, water and gaseous content. Some of the average oil sand formation properties are shown in Table 1. The Athabasca deposit has the largest in place reserves; 626 billion barrels or 66% of the total. The Cold Lake deposit is next largest with 164 billion barrels followed by the Wabasca and Peace River deposits. The Athabasca deposit is the only one inwhich the oil sand outcrops at the surface.

Steady-State Tar/Water Relative Permeabilities in Peace River Cores at Elevated Temperature

“…These experiments were conducted after Shell's steam injectivity and productivity field test in 1973-74 in the Peace River Bullhead sand 3 in support of an expanded stcam injection pilot. 4.5 Experimental conditions wcre chosen to represent the situation ahead of the condensation front in thc steamdrive process at Peace River.…”

Thermal Alterations of Asphaltenes in Peace River Tars

“…By sample 120 (June 18,1974), the carbon number distribution is similar to that of the cold production tar sample. Samples 170 (August 1,1974) and 200 (August 19,1974) contain somewhat higher amounts of the C s to C25 compounds, from 2.1 to 1.1 percent as compared with the cold production tar. This coincides with a 5-day shutdown period in the Peace River backflow test, July 27 to 31, 1974, and an initial higher and then decreasing productivity index observed when production was reinstated, August 1 to 3,1974.…”

Physical modelling of the electromagnetic heating of oil sand and other earth-type and biological materials

“…The necessary relationships follow directly from the respective definitions and the scaling criteria developed above.Thus, it is easily shown that P = P'cxPp 2 = P'p£^…”

“…The remainder of about 741 billion barrels or 78%, by far the largest part of the Alberta deposits, is beneath more than 150 m of overburden and must be recovered by in-situ methods. 1,2 The problem of in-situ recovery of oil from oil sand deposits received attention as early as 1920. 3 Since then, particularly in the last two decades, a variety of in : situ recovery techniques have been studied, including such methods as the underground injection of steam, hot water and hot gas, ignition of the oil within the formation and underground atomic explosions.…”