Oil sands, heavy oil & bitumen : from recovery to refinery

Unlike conventional oil resources, "unconventional oil" resources have been known to exist only for the last few decades and are available in limited areas of the world. The most commonly known "unconventional oils"--oil sands, heavy oil, and bitumen--are found primarily in the western United States, Canada, and Venezuela. Only recently has serious consideration has been given to North American resources for meeting the increasing demands for transportation fuel.
Dr. Banerjee discusses the importance of these unconventional oils and provides an introduction for those beginning their journey in the still unexplored unconventional hydrocarbon resources of the world.
This new book is an important educational tool for anyone in the petroleum industry--whether upstream, downstream, or pipeline--who would like to learn the fundamentals of the most commonly known unconventional oils: oil sands, heavy oil, and bitumen.

Author Notes

Dwijen K. Banerjee's research and development experience spans more than three decades in various research institutions and energy companies in Canada, Japan, the United States, and Venezuela. Dr. Banerjee's expertise is in the area of heavy oil and bitumen characterization, processing, and upgrading to synthetic crude. His main focus is on the development of newer heavy oil upgrading technologies, with special emphasis on residue hydroprocessing, coking, and pyrolysis.
Dr. Banerjee received advanced degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, and the Institute of Petroleum and Gas, Ploiesti, Romania. He is currently the senior advisor to the associate vice president of research and technology development at the University of Tulsa, consulting on converting heavy crudes and the growing demand for clean transportation fuels.

List of Illustrations	p. xi
Preface	p. xv
Acknowledgments	p. xviii
1 Introduction	p. 1
Definitions of Oil Sands, Heavy Oil, and Bitumen	p. 1
History of Oil Sands and Bitumen	p. 3
Deposits and Reserves of Extraheavy Oil and Bitumen	p. 5
Alberta	p. 5
Venezuela	p. 7
Alaska	p. 8
References	p. 10
2 The Chemistry of Bitumen	p. 11
Composition of Oil Sands and Bitumen	p. 11
Properties of bitumen	p. 12
Asphaltenes and Their Role in Bitumen	p. 16
Pre-asphaltenes	p. 18
SARA Classification of Bitumen	p. 18
Asphaltenes	p. 18
Maltenes	p. 19
Resins	p. 20
Oil-saturates and aromatics	p. 20
Comparison of SARA	p. 20
PONA characterization	p. 22
Distillation/Simulated Distillation	p. 22
Distillation	p. 23
Simulated distillation	p. 23
Resid/Residue/Residuum	p. 26
Comparison of resid versus distillate	p. 26
Comparison of asphalt and de-asphalted oil	p. 27
Metals	p. 29
Oxygen and TAN	p. 30
CCR	p. 30
Molecular Weight	p. 31
Challenges Facing Bitumen Characterization	p. 31
References	p. 33
3 Analytical Techniques	p. 35
Density and API Gravity	p. 38
Viscosity	p. 39
Viscosity versus temperature	p. 41
Viscosity versus diluent	p. 41
Viscosity of visbroken liquid	p. 42
Asphaltene Analysis	p. 43
SARA Analysis	p. 43
Distillation and HTSD	p. 45
A word of caution	p. 45
CHNS	p. 46
Metals	p. 46
TAN	p. 46
Water	p. 47
Challenges in Analysis of Heavy Petroleum Fractions	p. 47
References	p. 48
4 Recovery to Refinery	p. 49
Major Steps from Recovery to Refinery	p. 50
Step 1 Recovery	p. 51
Step 2 Oil/water separation	p. 51
Step 3 Transportation	p. 52
Step 4 Upgrading	p. 52
Challenges in Establishing the Worth of Bitumen	p. 53
Monetary value	p. 53
Net energy value	p. 54
Heating values of common fuels	p. 55
5 Bitumen Production and Recovery	p. 57
Surface Mining	p. 57
In Situ Recovery	p. 59
SAGD	p. 59
Hybrid steam/solvent processes	p. 63
Cyclic steam stimulation	p. 63
Cold heavy oil production with sand	p. 65
Vapor-assisted petroleum extraction	p. 65
In situ combustion	p. 66
Challenges Facing In Situ Recovery and Upgrading	p. 67
Paradigm Shift in Emerging Subsurface Technologies	p. 68
References	p. 70
6 Transportation of Heavy Oil/Bitumen	p. 71
Pipeline Specification	p. 71
Condensate	p. 72
Synthetic Crude Oil	p. 73
Transportation Options	p. 73
DilBit	p. 74
Syncrude/SynBit	p. 74
SynDilBit	p. 75
Composition of Pipeline Blends	p. 76
Blend composition and API gravity	p. 77
Orimulsion	p. 79
Challenges Facing the Pipeline Industries	p. 79
Stability issues	p. 79
Stability measurement	p. 80
References	p. 81
7 Upgrading of Heavy Oil/Bitumen	p. 83
Why Upgrade Bitumen?	p. 83
Synthetic Crude versus Conventional Crude	p. 84
Severity of Upgrading	p. 86
Major Upgrading Processes	p. 87
Carbon-rejection processes	p. 88
Hydrogen-addition processes	p. 93
Challenges in Upgrading of Bitumen	p. 98
Challenges in Catalyst Development	p. 98
References	p. 99
8 Potential Heavy Oil-Upgrading Technologies	p. 101
Technology and Feedstock Properties	p. 101
Carbon-Rejection Technologies	p. 103
Commercial technologies	p. 103
Emerging technologies	p. 108
Solvent De-asphalting	p. 110
Commercial SDA process-Residual Oil Supercritical Extraction	p. 111
Emerging SDA process-Selective Separation Recovery Process	p. 112
Hydrogen-Addition Technologies	p. 113
Process parameters	p. 114
Product yields	p. 115
Liquid API	p. 115
Liquid composition	p. 117
Gaseous hydrocarbons	p. 118
Hydrogenation Efficiency	p. 119
Desulfurization	p. 119
Asphaltenes and CCR conversion	p. 120
Hydrogen consumption	p. 121
Resid Hydrocracking Technologies	p. 122
Ebullated-bed technology	p. 122
Moving-bed technology	p. 124
Slurry-phase technology	p. 124
Stages of Development	p. 127
First stage	p. 128
Second stage	p. 128
Third stage	p. 130
Fourth stage	p. 130
Fifth stage	p. 132
References	p. 132
9 Upgrader Project Scenarios and the Future of Clean-Bitumen Technology	p. 135
Present Commercial Upgraders	p. 136
Long Lake upgrader	p. 137
Clean-Bitumen Upgraders	p. 138
Base case	p. 140
Option 1 Vacuum flash unit	p. 141
Option 2 Delayed-coker unit	p. 142
Option 3 SDA unit	p. 143
Option 4 SDA and delayed-coker units	p. 144
Option 5 Hydrocracker unit	p. 146
The Black Diamond Process	p. 147
The Clean-Coal-Bitumen Process	p. 150
Hydrogen Production and Gasification	p. 152
References	p. 154
10 Challenges Facing Conventional Refineries Using Unconventional Oil	p. 157
Difficulties in Refining Syncrude	p. 158
Difficulties in Refining SynBit	p. 159
Difficulties in Refining SynDilBit	p. 159
Difficulties in Refining DilBit	p. 159
11 Final Thought-Going Green	p. 161
Is Nuclear Energy a Viable Solution?	p. 163
References	p. 164
Appendix A Glossary	p. 165
Appendix B Additional Reading	p. 169
Appendix C Collaborators	p. 171
Index	p. 173

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Table of Contents