Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

With established reserves of 185 billion barrels of bitumen, the oilsands of Alberta are one of the largest petroleum resources on Earth, and an important strategic asset for Canada. The capital cost of oilsands mining is immense, at $15 billion for a plant producing circa 100,000 barrels/day of oil. Part of the expense is the number of process steps. In addition, the available upgrading processes are expensive to operate, and they reject a significant amount of material, either as coke as illustrated in the figure, or as unconverted large molecules with low value. Consequently, new upgrading technology is important for the industry.In this project, we propose to focus our efforts on direct upgrading of bitumen froth. Bitumen froth is a water-in-oil emulsion, with the clays and fine minerals adsorbed mainly at the water-oil interface. This behaviour of the clays is controlled by the bitumen components that adsorb to the clay surfaces. Current technology for froth treatment precipitates a portion of the bitumen with the clays and water to break the emulsion. This approach is expensive, and rejects circa 75 t/h of bitumen into an asphaltene slurry By upgrading this material directly, we can reduce capital costs by combining two major process steps, Froth Treatment and Upgrading, and eliminate losses of bitumen components into the tailings. Based on our recent research on bitumen behaviour we can evaluate the mechanisms of water-bitumen interactions in order to identify the best possible processing strategy. The aim of this CRD project is to provide essential engineering tools and fundamentals to allow evaluation of this opportunity of froth upgrading.