Abstract
Use of additives to improve the efficiency of thermal heavy oil and bitumen recovery processes has been studied extensively over the decades. Two common types of additives used in thermal applications, mainly steam assisted recovery, are solvents and surfactants. Commercial use of solvents has setbacks due to their high costs and retrieval difficulties. Cost and stability of the surfactants under reservoir operating temperature and pressure are the major concerns. We propose the use of bioDiesel such as fatty acids methyl ester as a surfactant additive reducing heavy oil/bitumen-water interfacial tension in steam assisted recovery processes. Advantages of using bioDiesel as a surfactant additive are that bioDiesel is chemically stable under the operating pressure and temperature of the reservoir, it causes no harm on bitumen fuel quality and on release water chemistry and its use is economically feasible.We conducted a series of steam assisted bitumen recovery experiments to clarify the additional recovery potential and efficiency improvement capacity of bioDiesel. High pressure steam at 1.8 MPa pressure, 205°C was used in these tests at a 900 g/h feed rate. The porous media used was a normal grade oil sands ore obtained from a surface mine operation in Northern Alberta, Canada. Oil sands ore was packed in a basket and placed in a high pressure cell. Bitumen recovery experiments were performed by spraying canola oil fatty acid methyl ester on oil sands ore at a 2 g/kg-bitumen dosage. These tests show that bitumen recovery efficiency increases over 40%. In another series of tests, tall oil fatty acids methyl ester was injected into a high pressure steam line at a 8.3 g-bioDiesel/kg-steam dosage. Because of the solubility of bioDiesel in bitumen, the effect of bioDiesel on bitumen recovery could not be accurately concluded. Vapor pressure measurements performed on canola oil and tall oil derived bioDiesel samples suggest that saturation compositions of bioDiesel in steam at 1.8 MPa pressure and 205°C are at least one order of magnitude higher than the requested bioDiesel dosages. Further tests are planned by reducing bioDiesel dosages to about 0.5 to 1.0 g-bioDiesel/kilogram-steam and by monitoring the solubility of bioDiesel in bitumen.
Highlights
In Northern Alberta, four commercial plants are processing surface mineable oil sands deposits for extracting bitumen using an oil sands ore-water slurry based extraction process
We have considered the use of other surface active agents to improve the extraction efficiency without harming the fuel quality of the bitumen, and to mitigate the environmental effects due to changes in water chemistry and geotechnical properties of the tailings
Surface and interfacial tensions play an important role in liberation and recovery of bitumen in oil sands ore-water slurry based extraction systems, which should play the same role in steam assisted bitumen recovery processes
Summary
In Northern Alberta, four commercial plants are processing surface mineable oil sands deposits for extracting bitumen using an oil sands ore-water slurry based extraction process This process was first introduced in the 1930s and is known as the Clark How Water Extraction (CHWE) technique (Clark, 1939; Clark and Pasternack, 1932). The current bitumen production through this technique exceeds one-million barrels/day in the region It has been a well established fact that reduction of the surface and interfacial tensions plays an important role on the efficiency of bitumen recovery in ore-water slurry systems (Bowman, 1968; Baptista and Bowman, 1969; Moschopedis et al, 1977, 1980; Speight and Moschopedis, 1977). We have considered the use of other surface active agents to improve the extraction efficiency without harming the fuel quality of the bitumen, and to mitigate the environmental effects due to changes in water chemistry and geotechnical properties of the tailings
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