Hi Nate,

My understanding is THAI™ can be applied where ever SAG-D can be applied. Alberta estimates the total resource at 1.7 trillion barrels. I'm guessing 1+trillion of the resource is a candidate for THAI™. It is also applicable to producing heavy oil with the same kind of recovery and upgrading performance. Saskatchewan has 21+ billion barrels of heavy oil. The first pilot in Saskatchewan will be a JV with True Energy/Kerrobert to come on stream this summer.

The scalability of THAI™ is confirmed in the May River Phase I application of 10,000 BPD of a 100,000 BPD project when fully developed. You can apply that to the entire SAG-D resource to get an idea of the significance of this development for North America.

The produced water is what I would call an industrial quality fresh water and is suitable for use by SAG-D operators. The information in the permit application states 2 barrels of water for every barrel of THAI™ produced bitumen.

In my opinion, the process will likely export electrical power to the grid as the available joules in the lean process gas are considerably in excess of the 25 Megawatts called for in the permit energy balance for plant utilities. In other words, the EROI will likely be greater than the highest of the three numbers calculated from the data in the permit. For this posting, we went with the data published. As this is the first scaled up commercial demonstration facility, I believe all the utility requirements are conservatively presented (larger than required).

Late to the party here this morning...thanks to google alerts for cueing me that the post is up :<)