• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

As conventional oil and gas reservoirs become depleted, interests for oil sands has rapidly increased in the last decade. Oil sands are mixture of bitumen, water, and host sediments of sand and clay. Most oil sand is unconsolidated sand that is held together by bitumen. Bitumen has hydrocarbon in situ viscosity of >10,000 centipoises (cP) at reservoir condition and has API gravity between $8-14^{\circ}$. The largest oil sand deposits are in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. The reverves are approximated at 1.7 trillion barrels of initial oil-in-place and 173 billion barrels of remaining established reserves. Alberta has a number of oil sands deposits which are grouped into three oil sand development areas - the Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River, with the largest current bitumen production from Athabasca. Principal oil sands deposits consist of the McMurray Fm and Wabiskaw Mbr in Athabasca area, the Gething and Bluesky formations in Peace River area, and relatively thin multi-reservoir deposits of McMurray, Clearwater, and Grand Rapid formations in Cold Lake area. The reservoir sediments were deposited in the foreland basin (Western Canada Sedimentary Basin) formed by collision between the Pacific and North America plates and the subsequent thrusting movements in the Mesozoic. The deposits are underlain by basement rocks of Paleozoic carbonates with highly variable topography. The oil sands deposits were formed during the Early Cretaceous transgression which occurred along the Cretaceous Interior Seaway in North America. The oil-sands-hosting McMurray and Wabiskaw deposits in the Athabasca area consist of the lower fluvial and the upper estuarine-offshore sediments, reflecting the broad and overall transgression. The deposits are characterized by facies heterogeneity of channelized reservoir sands and non-reservoir muds. Main reservoir bodies of the McMurray Formation are fluvial and estuarine channel-point bar complexes which are interbedded with fine-grained deposits formed in floodplain, tidal flat, and estuarine bay. The Wabiskaw deposits (basal member of the Clearwater Formation) commonly comprise sheet-shaped offshore muds and sands, but occasionally show deep-incision into the McMurray deposits, forming channelized reservoir sand bodies of oil sands. In Canada, bitumen of oil sands deposits is produced by surface mining or in-situ thermal recovery processes. Bitumen sands recovered by surface mining are changed into synthetic crude oil through extraction and upgrading processes. On the other hand, bitumen produced by in-situ thermal recovery is transported to refinery only through bitumen blending process. The in-situ thermal recovery technology is represented by Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage and Cyclic Steam Stimulation. These technologies are based on steam injection into bitumen sand reservoirs for increase in reservoir in-situ temperature and in bitumen mobility. In oil sands reservoirs, efficiency for steam propagation is controlled mainly by reservoir geology. Accordingly, understanding of geological factors and characteristics of oil sands reservoir deposits is prerequisite for well-designed development planning and effective bitumen production. As significant geological factors and characteristics in oil sands reservoir deposits, this study suggests (1) pay of bitumen sands and connectivity, (2) bitumen content and saturation, (3) geologic structure, (4) distribution of mud baffles and plugs, (5) thickness and lateral continuity of mud interbeds, (6) distribution of water-saturated sands, (7) distribution of gas-saturated sands, (8) direction of lateral accretion of point bar, (9) distribution of diagenetic layers and nodules, and (10) texture and fabric change within reservoir sand body.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 2013

Heavy oil residue upgrading process was being used in conventional refinery process. Recently, as the importance of non conventional energy development is growing up, the commercial projects of heavy oil upgrading are getting more active than before. For having competitive business model in the resource competition, non conventional energy development should be considered as an important business strategy. In developing oil sands, extra heavy oil, and shale gas, canadian oil sands and extra heavy oil have great importance in substitution of conventional oil consumption. In oil sands development, the bitumen, which is extracted from oil sands, has great value after upgrading or refining process. Similar process is being used current conventional refinery process. The bitumen is highly viscous hydrocarbon. This bitumen includes impurities which can not be treated in conventional refinery process. As this reason, specified process is needed in bitumen or extra heavy oil upgrading process. Moreover, there will be additional specified facilities in the process of production, transportation and marketing. In oil sands, there are various kinds of commercial upgrading process. Extraction, dilution, coking and cracking method were being used commercially.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.19-24
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• 2016

Oil sands are a mixture of sand, clay, and a high-viscosity petroleum called bitumen. Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is the most viable and environmentally safe recovery technology for extracting bitumen. It extracts the viscosity-lowered bitumen by high pressure, high temperature steam injected into the bitumen reservoir. The steam is produced at the Central Processing Facility (CPF). Typically, more than 90% of the energy consumed in producing bitumen are used to generate the steam. Fuels are employed in the process, which cause economic and environmental problems. This paper explores the retrofit of heat exchanger network to reduce the usage of hot and cold utilities. The hot and cold utilities are reduced respectively 6% and 37.3% which in turn resulted in 5.3% saving of total annual cost by improving the existing heat exchanger network of the CPF.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.209-214
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• 2014

In this paper, the rheological behaviors and non-Newtonian characteristics of maltenes which is effected by hydrocarbon solvent type, solvent mixing ratio, temperature and shear rate was measured and compared with oil sands bitumen. Maltenes was made by SDA (solvent deasphalting) method from oil sands bitumen. Oil sands bitumen had apparent viscosities of $800{\sim}150000mPa{\cdot}s$ measured at a shear rate of $50sec^{-1}$ in the range of $25{\sim}85^{\circ}C$ and showed yield stress of 0.1~0.3 Pa at the temperatures below $35^{\circ}C$. All the oil sands bitumen and maltenes exhibited a shear-thinning, i.e. pseudoplastic behavior and apparent viscosity of maltenes decreased with decreasing carbon numbers of hydrocarbon solvent. The change in apparent viscosity with temperature could be described by the simple Guzman-Andrade equation, and maltene viscosities were decreased as the mixing ratio of n-pentane was raised. Also, all maltenes approached to Newtonian fluid as temperature were increased. the degree of pseudoplasticity was enhanced with decreasing carbon number of solvent.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.592-599
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• 2008

Oil sands had not received enough attention due to high production cost. However, as oil price significantly increases, oil sands are receiving more and more interest as unconventional crude oil. The value and applicability of oil sands can be enhanced by upgrading oil sands bitumen to produce synthetic crude oil (SCO). This study analyzed 213 oil sands upgrading patents applied between 1969 and 2006 in US, Canada, Japan, Europe, and Korea. The upgrading technologies could be classified into 9 detailed technologies; hydrocracking, coking, thermal cracking, deasphalting, supercritical technology, bio-technology, hydrotreating, gasification, and others. The number of patents applied for oil sands upgrading increased after 1970, reached a maximum in the early 1980, and slowly increases again in recent years. Korea has a lack of technologies for oil sands. Therefore, the technologies for oil sands production and application, specially, upgrading technologies based on accumulated oil refinery technologies need to be developed to increase self-development ratio of energy resource.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 2009

Oil sands are sands containing bitumen similar to crude petroleum. Oil sands had not received enough interest because of the high production cost. However, in the current record-high oil price situation, oil sands are considered as new sources for unconventional oil. In this study, patents analysis was performed for the technologies of production of synthetic crude oil from oil sands. The patents covered were open patents applied in Korea, US, Canada, Japan, Europe, and China. The patents were divided into five detailed technologies; mining and in-situ, extraction, upgrading, fuelling, and other technologies. For oil sands technologies, there have been steady patent applications, since the first patent was applied in 1969. The number of patents applied appeared to be affected by the variation of world oil price. The portion of patents applied in US and Canada was about 90% of the overall patents and it means 05 and Canada have led oil sands technologies. Mining and in-situ technologies, and extraction have been developed actively and occupied more than 77% of the overall patents. However, the number of patents applied for mining and in-situ technologies, and extraction has been constant or started to decrease since 2000. The number of patents applied for upgrading technologies increases recently and it shows the development of upgrading technologies is active now.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.350-361
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• 2008

Canada's oil sands contain one of the largest reserves of oil in the world. According to recent estimates, there are nearly 180 billion barrels of oil in the Canadian oil sands trapped in a complex mixture of sand, water and clay. More than 40 companies have been currently operating or developing oil sands facilities since the first production in 1967. The process of oil sands upgrading is similar with down stream refinery, but the corrosion environment in upgrading refinery is often more severe than in the refinery because of high chlorides, mineral contents, carbonic acid, heavy viscosity and fouling, higher naphthenic acid [$NA-R(CH_{2})nCOOH$], and greater sulfur contents. Naphthenic acid corrosion (NAC) which is one of the most critical corrosion issues in up & downstream refinery plants was observed for the first time in 1920's in refinery distillation processes of Rumania, Azerbaizan (Baku), Venezuela, and California. As a first API report, the 11th annual meeting stated sources and mechanism of NAC in early 1930's. API has been developing the risk base standards, such as API RP580, 571, and Publication 581 which are based on the worst NAC damage in the world since 2000. Nevertheless not only the NAC phenomena and control in Canadian sands oil process are not much widely known but also there are still no engineering guidances for the Canadian sands oil in API standards. This paper will give NAC phenomina and materials selection guidance against NA environment in Canadian oil sands upgrading processes.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.5-9
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• 2016

The purpose of this paper is to define criteria to be used as part of the engineering design for an oil sands plant equipped with the steam assisted gravity drainage process. In this effort, the oil treatment process of an oil sands plant on a pilot scale was focused for detailed investigation. The thermodynamic properties of the process fluid, which is mainly composed of bitumen and water, were estimated with the CPA model. The commercial tool aspen HYSYS was used for the analysis throughout this work along with the provided input data and some necessary assumptions. From the simulation results, the heat and mass balances for a 300 BPD plant were established in order to define standard data for its modular design. In particular, the basis of design for equipment size, heat transfer areas, capital cost and operation cost was extensively discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.332-341
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• 2023

The controversy is becoming a hot issue after informed that the water release from Canadian oil sands tailings may initiate within a few years. The surface-mined bitumen extraction in open pit generates wastewater inevitably, which has been conveyed to store in tailings ponds. Currently, the size of tailings pond is getting seriously larger. It is known that tailings treatment is very difficult because the generation of MFT (mature fine tailings) layer is hardly processable. It would be the key process to separate solids and liquid placed within MFT where fine particles are well dispersed. In this paper, the surface-mined bitumen extraction process was first introduced, and followed by presenting the components of tailings as well as the characteristics of MFT. In addition, MFT process options were evaluated. It is expected that successful MFT treatments may be achieved by dewatering process using effective polymer flocculants in near future.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.38-45
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• 2008

In this work, we investigated the variation of physical and chemical characteristics of solvent-insolubles and solvent-solubles in Canada's Athabasca oil sands by solvent-insolubles experiments. N-Heptane, n-Hexane, and n-Pentane were tested for solvents and asphaltenes were separated from maltenes by using a modified ASTM D 3279 method. Elemental analysis, boiling point distribution (SIMDIS), molecular weight distribution, heavy metal contents, API gravity, viscosity and SARA fractions were measured for thorough samples. The asphaltenes-removed maltenes contained less sulfur and heavy metal amounts and had lower molecular weight than the original bitumen. N-Pentane solvent could lower sulfur and heavy metal amounts, molecular weight, and viscosity of maltenes compared to the other solvents. Eventually, we confirmed that the obtained experimental data could be used as basic informations of bitumen upgrading processes for the production of SCO (synthetic crude oil).