An Ultra-low Emissions Enhanced Thermal Recovery Process for Oil Sands

Abstract

Abstract The growth of energy demand over the next few decades with declining conventional fossil fuel production implies that greater reliance will be placed on unconventional fossil fuel energy sources such as heavy oil and extra heavy oil (bitumen). However, unconventional fuels tend to have higher environmental impact than their conventional counterparts. Here, we focus on the oil sands resource of Alberta, Canada whose recovery is both energy and emissions intensive on one hand yet provide economic and social benefits to society on the other hand. There is a drive to improve the energy and emission intensities of oil sands recovery processes. We evaluate the combined application of natural gas decarbonization (NGD) with oxy-combustion and the utilization its CO 2 -rich flue gas to achieve an ultra-low emissions enhanced thermal recovery process for bitumen from oil sands. We used industry-accepted thermal reservoir simulation tools to model steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) bitumen recovery using a steam-CO 2 mixture. Our results show that the overall performance of the proposed process when applied to a moderately high oil saturation reservoir is improved over the current practice both from an energy intensity and a CO 2 footprint basis.