Bitumen Upgrading
The bitumen recovered in the extraction process is upgraded to high quality, synthetic crude oil. By removing carbon (coking) and adding hydrogen, the bitumen is converted into a lighter liquid hydrocarbon resembling conventional crude, called synthetic crude oil (SCO). By-products of these processes are elemental sulphur and coke. The Syncrude and Suncor mining projects both employ on-site upgraders and pipeline their SCO to refineries to the south. The three main upgrading projects are Suncor, Syncrude, and Shell's Scotford upgraders. These upgraders produce close to 106 000 cubic metres of SCO per day. According to current forecasts by Alberta Energy, upgrading capacity in Canada will increase to 280 000 cubic metres per day by 2016.
The Long Lake project is the first in-situ oil sands project to integrate SAGD with an on-site upgrader. It uses the ORcrude process along with commercially available hydrocracking and gasification technologies to upgrade the bitumen to SCO and produce fuel gas. The process is designed to significantly reduce the need to purchase outside fuel such as natural gas.
New initiatives include:
- Enhancing hydro-transport effectiveness
- Developing means of reducing forces binding bitumen to sand
- Improving the effectiveness of the demulsification process
- Optimizing temperature adjustments and additives in low temperature extraction
- Improving the recycling of water
- Improving sulphur extraction and hydrogenation and coking of bitumen to produce high quantity crude oil
