Cenovus 10 MW CLC Field Pilot

Abstract

It requires energy to extract bitumen from the vast Alberta oil sands resources, which results in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Even though natural gas, the least carbon intensive fossil fuel is used to produce steam for bitumen recovery from in situ reserves, emissions of GHG continue to increase as the bitumen output is increasing annually. There is an urgent need to develop alternative lower CO2 avoidance-cost carbon capture technologies, to mitigate these emissions. Chemical looping combustion (CLC) is an inherently CO2 capture ready steam generation technology and has the potential of lower CO2 avoidance cost. Cenovus Energy Inc. (Cenovus) engaged ANDRITZ Energy & Environment GmbH (AE&E) and Vienna University of Technology (TUV) to complete a preliminary design of a 10 MW CLC steam generator pilot (CLSG). It is designed to produce 16.5 tonnes per hour of 100bar 100% quality steam using natural gas. Cenovus plans to install and operate it in its Christina Lake Thermal Project (Host). The Pilot will be completely integrated with the Host who will use the steam for oil production using Cenovus’ steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. The successful demonstration of this Pilot will pave the way for design, construction and operation of commercial CLC boilers by 2020. This paper will discuss the CLSG designs, its development status, the test program to validate the performances of the 10 MW CLSG and the first generation NiO oxygen carrier.