Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The overall result of technology R&D has been to reduce operating costs from over
$20/barrel in the early 1970s to $8-12/barrel in 2000. While technology improvements helped
reduce some costs since 2000, total costs have risen significantly as discussed below, because
of rising capital and energy costs.[45]
Upgrading[46]
Upgrading the bitumen uses the process of coking for carbon removal or hydro- cracking
for hydrogen addition (see figure 5). Coking is a common carbon removal technique that
“cracks” the bitumen using heat and catalysts, producing light oils, natural gas, and coke (a
solid carbon byproduct). The coking process is highly aromatic and produces a low quality
product. The product must be converted in a refinery to a lighter gas and distillate.
Hydrocracking also cracks the oil into light oils but produces no coke byproduct.
Hydrocracking requires natural gas for conversion to hydrogen. Hydrocracking, used often in
Canada, better handles the aromatics. The resulting SCO has zero residues which help keep
its market value high, equivalent to light crude.
Partial upgrading raises the API of the bitumen to 20-25 degrees for pipeline quality
crude. A full upgrade would raise the API to between 30-43 degrees — closer to conventional
crude. An integrated mining operation includes mining and upgrading. Many of the mining
operations have an on-site upgrading facility, including those of Suncor and Syncrude.
Suncor uses the coking process for upgrading, while Syncrude uses both coking and
hydrocracking and Shell uses hydrocracking. (For the complete oil sands processing chain,
see figure 6.)
Source
:
Overview of Canada's Oil Sands
, TD Securities, p. 15.
Figure 6. Oil Sands Processing Chain.
A major trend among both mining and in situ producers is to integrate the upgrading with
the refinery to cut costs; e.g., linking SAGD production with current refinery capabilities.
Long-term processing success of oil sands will depend on how well this integration takes
place and how well the industry addresses the following issues:
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