Abstract
Since 1999, Japan Canada Oil Sands Limited has been producing heavy oil derived from oil sands in the Hangingstone field, northeastern Alberta, using Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) technology. In order to follow severe environmental policies in Alberta, water recycling is mandatory to operate SAGD that needs a large amount of steam. Injected steam is returned as produced hot water, which is recycled as boiler feed water (BFW). However, the produced hot water contains dissolved organic compounds (DOCs) that give trouble to water recycling system, such as boiler tube leakage. Under the system where DOCs are supplied from oil sand reservoir, our study result for DOCs showed that it is very difficult to remove DOCs from BFW in a technical and/or economical way. To date, the water recycling system has been improved with a concept that DOCs can not be as concentrated in the BFW line as possible. DOCs are concentrated into disposal water, which is injected to a disposal zone. The actual result that water recycling ratio is now over 90% ranks high.
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