The Oil Drum: Canada | The Status of Canadian Oil Production

36 comments on The Status of Canadian Oil Production

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

jjhman on August 18, 2007 - 12:17pm

Its difficult not to be impressed by the audacity of some of these technologies. Yet I can't help but wonder how much of this is just hype to snare the investors. As near as I can tell from these links some professor in the UK got "80% recovery", whatever that means, in some lab test of the THAI process. Now the PPT presentations are saying they will get that in a field test in 2006. However I couldn't find any indication that such a test had been completed. My question is "80% of what?"

If the technologies work at all in the field, however, they will certainly mitigate any concerns that have been expressed about use of water and natural gas in Alberta.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Gail the Actuary on August 18, 2007 - 12:53pm

I was told by the person who sent me the links that this is a one year test. According to him, the test is underway and going well. These are some more recent items:

http://www.petrobank.com/webdocs/news_2007/PBG_2007_06_18_WHITESANDS_P3_...

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release.do?id=759473

http://www.oilsandsreview.com/articles.asp?ID=449

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

oilmanbob on August 18, 2007 - 2:13pm

Gail, the figures I've read say they are producing 6 bbls a day of water for each barrel of syncrude, so the volume of waste has to be at least twice that of the volume of syncrude produced, as the water is mainly used to make a slurry for transportation.

IMHO, 80% doesn't cut it. We stopped using open pits for disposal in Texas about 40 years ago, but not before the seepage trashed huge amounts of shallow sands and surface water. The tar in the tar sands is a coating on the grains of sand and clay, so the amount of waste starts with the volume of waste at least equal to the volume of sand that is processed. It sure would be nice if they handled an environmental disaster before it became the biggest environmental disaster on the North American Continent. The Exxon Valdez is insignificant compared to this.
Bob Ebersole

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

rainsong on August 18, 2007 - 2:47pm

In the press release they stated a more than 50% oil cut from their first two well pairs, they injected very little water in the process.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

theantidoomer on August 18, 2007 - 3:27pm

Exactly rain song, from the reports gail posted very little water is needed in the new process AND they are getting a higher amount of oil and a higher grade out. Here here for technology.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

mtnlion44 on August 18, 2007 - 5:06pm

Where's the beef?!

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

elwoodelmore on August 18, 2007 - 10:42pm

new process ? air injection, fireflood, insitu combustion, call it what you like (one guy i know called it farflood...... far = texan for fire). this has been tried since at least the 1950's.

some of the problems( as related to insitu combustion in an "oil" reservoir)

1) the combustion process tends to sweep only the upper portion of the oil zone.

2)much of the heat generated is wasted. everything is heated including the rock above and below the oil zone.

3) mobility. the combustion gases have a much lower viscosity than the "displaced" oil.

4) capital requirements although this is most likely a fraction of the capital requirments for tar pit mining.
but much greater than "conventional" oil production (of course the capital requirments for drilling for oil at the north pole are much greater than for "conventional" oil production also.
5) operational problems corrosion, scale deposition, polution, sand production, carbon and wax or tar deposits
hazardous gases (such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and hydrogen sulphide) and tubing and casing failure due to excessive temperatures.

maybe these problems can be overcome but not in time to save us from peak oil. go ahead and park the suv.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.