Describe the Oilsands in plain language

[killer_carlson]

I have to do a presentation to a group of international and national colleagues. I was going to include mention of the oilsands. I want to describe the oilsands themselves, in plain language without any of the political/environmental mumbo jumbo.

So, it is like viscous asphalt?

Oily, sandy, dirt?

thoughts?

[Kybosh]

The wikipedia page is honestly pretty good.

I would probably talk about how technological advancements are really making oil sands a worthwhile endeavour.

[Pinner]

Be sure to mention the new technologies that don't require open pit mining and tailings ponds.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

http://www.energy.alberta.ca/OilSands/793.asp

Be sure to mention the difference between surface mining, in-situ and if you can the difference in in-situ methods SAGD vs THAI etc

[Pinner]

That was an interesting read about THAI

[Bill Bumface]

I love everyone coming to the defense when the OP was just asking people to describe the formation itself.

I think "Oilsands" really nails it. Its just sticky, oily sand. Think thick oil dumped in sand and stirred around.

[HPLovecraft]

Think molasses mixed with sand. Or tar, but it appears the PR campaign has won out over that.

[burn_this_city]

Tar is a by product of coal, its closer to asphalt than tar. People like using tar because it sounds far more sinister. The resource itself is oily sand, which smells like asphalt.

[Delthefunky]

Although wrong in many ways, my old man describes it as the clean up of a natural oil spill.

[Skate around the circle]

I have been told it takes 3 barrels of water to seperate 1 barrel of oil, maybe we will run out of water first.

[SeeGeeWhy]

It is about as thick as peanut butter when it is in the reservoir at natural temperature and pressure. Its like molasses when its warmed up with steam.

The oil itself is lower quality like that because of exposure to fresh water and bacteria over long periods of time. The bacteria consume the light ends which degrades the oil.

It covers a massive area in three major deposits - Cold Lake, Athabasca and Peace River.

The Cold Lake deposit is mostly in the clearwater formation which is quite shaley and is produced using a steam process called CSS (cyclic steam stimulation), or Huff and Puff, where you inject steam into a vertical wellbore, allow pressure and heat to increase in proximity to the well, and then the same well is allowed to flow back for a production phase. Imperial oil has been doing this in the Cold lake region for decades economically and still does it.

The athabasca region is the "famous" Wabiskaw/McMurray type deposits that are usually cleaner sands, but have other issues such as being closer to surface than the clearwater deposits in the Cold Lake region. This is the region and formation famously associated with the open pit mines that are about 40 years old at their oldest. CSS is not an appropriate technology for that reservoir for the most part, which is why it hasn't been developed until recently. A majority of this resource is still fairly deep and will not be accessable by mining or CSS, and the popular technology these days is drilling pairs of horizontal wells to inject steam and produce the formation at the same time. There are also processes that inject air into the formation and literally burn part of the oil that is in place in order to create heat and allow the oil to flow, very similar to traditional "fire flooding", except horizontal wells are used. Although the pilot projects that use this technology still do not produce commercially viable rates, it is still a technology that is being pursued hard academically and by a handful of producers.

The cold lake region is predominantly populated by carbonate (limestone) formations that are deep, but do not accept steam injection well for a variety of reasons. These formations represent significant upside to the amount of recoverable reserves (not currently booked or reported) if and when an appropriate technology is developed for their production. Many operators and academics are also exploring the potential for this type of deposit.

The reservoir/recovery processes, as well as the oil separation and water treatment processes vary significantly from project to project and its difficult to use rules of thumb that apply to all of them equally. However, in general gas is burned to generate steam and electricity (or electricity is used from the grid to generate steam), and a very high percentage of the water that comes back from the reservoir is recycled for use in the processing of the oil. Typically the oil is blended with liquids rich natural gas or synthetic crude oil before entering into a pipeline for being sold. Most of this volume goes to US sites for upgrading and refinement.

There is some effort being made to build a pipeline to a terminal on West Coast BC to allow better access to Asian markets. It would be beneficial if rail reached these projects for both the delivery of major equipment and for the shipment of unrefined product to various markets. I believe this is also underworks...

[HPLovecraft]

Originally Posted by burn_this_city

Tar is a by product of coal, its closer to asphalt than tar. People like using tar because it sounds far more sinister. The resource itself is oily sand, which smells like asphalt.

These days, oil sounds far more sinister than tar. Not too many tar spills wreaking environmental havoc around the world. I used the term because of its appearance, not its "sinister" quality.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Skate around the circle

I have been told it takes 3 barrels of water to seperate 1 barrel of oil, maybe we will run out of water first.

Water doesn't get destroyed, it eventually ends up back in the water cycle.

The concern would be using enough water that things downstream that need it go without.

[Rathji]

Is there still an energy museum in Calgary? I went as a kid, but I don't remember anything about it other than a really big classic car and a bin where you you feel the oil sands with big rubber gloves.

[killer_carlson]

Originally Posted by Skate around the circle

I have been told it takes 3 barrels of water to seperate 1 barrel of oil, maybe we will run out of water first.

That was utterly unhelpful. Thank you for wasting my time.

[killer_carlson]

THanks to everyone else who answered. I have what i need.

It's only going to be touched upon in two or three sentences and I'm not going to go near the technology perspective as it isn't relevant to my topic.

[Madman]

Originally Posted by Skate around the circle

I have been told it takes 3 barrels of water to seperate 1 barrel of oil, maybe we will run out of water first.

I suggest you compare that 3 barrels of water to some other surprising facts.

http://geologicsystems.wordpress.com...0%99s-jeans-3/

[Ducay]

I wouldn't even call it peanut butter in its natural state, its basically just sand coated in tar, really only become slightly liquid when it gets really hot outside.


And I think most projects are using ~5% of their alloted water draw from the Athabasca.....so eat that hippies! (And we're talking the open pit ones)

[DFO]

The OP's overview is decent enough. It's worth mentioning that the in-situ projects source deeper brackish water for the operations unlike the mines. They are also ramping up the recycling and moving towards reduced liquid discharge or even zero liquid discharge.

[Matty81]

However unlikely, if you ever end up in Fort Mac you should go to the Oilsands Interpretive Centre - they walk you through the process start to finish starting with the tarsand itself (school trips every other year - good times). Syncrude also used to give out these displays with about 4 or 5 little vials showing the process from tarsand to Syncrude's Sweet Blend that was kind of cool too, don't think the family still has one kicking around but if I come across it I'll post a pic.