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 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.

The five operating upgraders in Alberta have the capacity to handle approximately 206 000 cubic metres of bitumen per day. Essentially all of the mined production went to upgrading, and 11 per cent of the in-situ production was upgraded in 2010. A total of 125 800 cubic metres per day of synthetic crude oil was produced.

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