Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada seeks information overhaul in energy sector

Energy scholars are separating the snake oil from 90 years of bitumen genius

By Gordon Jaremko

December 01, 2009

“We’re interested in facts,” Godin said in urging companies to enlist in the PTAC initiative. “This is not a forum to debate climate change, for instance. What we’re about is acknowledging governments have targets for carbon emissions reductions and finding ways to hit them.”

Assembling an oil sands knowledge warehouse will not take much money by industry standards, Asgarpour emphasized. The main requirement is co-
operation among experts. The moment is ripe for the effort because specialist teams are still largely intact and the current bitumen project lull gives them some time to make contributions.

The work includes creating an accessible reference point that industry and government can use for quickly refreshing their memories. Oil sands history is rich in big ideas that have been tried, set aside and forgotten only to be revived for fresh promotions because they arouse imaginations.

One recurring favorite is the use of electricity, possibly generated by atomic power plants, for a low-emissions bitumen production system. It currently takes considerable effort to check into whether the idea has ever been tested.

It turns out that AOSTRA, Petro-Canada, Imperial Oil Ltd., Canada-Cities Services Corp. and Japan Canada Oil Sands Ltd. teamed up to give the concept a four-year field trial in 1979-83. A bitumen formation was heated up by plugging a potent power current into a natural underlying layer of electrically conductive water. The ore melted but production was disappointing and the idea was shelved because geological conditions prevented the hot bitumen from flowing to the surface, AOSTRA records show.

Godin and Asgarpour want a complete inventory of oil sands strokes of genius, including new ones as they come along. Industry and government need to be able to make comparisons and think about combining concepts that could work together as systems even if they accomplish little by themselves.
“A lot of work has been done over the years, for example on applications of atomic energy, carbon capture and storage, gasification, combustion and non-aqueous upgrading. All these things exist,” Godin said.

Asgarpour predicted there will be no shortage of demand for an oil sands technology encyclopedia. Alberta Energy and Natural Resources Canada have expressed considerable interest in preliminary discussions of the project, he reported.

“The environment is a very important part of this but it’s not the whole thing. We really need to look at it from the point of view of security of supply. We want to make clean bitumen profitable. We’ve really got to focus on something that would reduce both costs and the environmental footprint,” the PTAC president said.

“We can’t rely on oil prices. We have to rely on technology,” Asgarpour said. Thirsty markets and depletion of conventional, flowing wells will open an ever-wider development opportunity if the northern Alberta bitumen belt can make clean products. The world needs about 40 million barrels per day of new production by 2030 if the Paris-based International Energy Agency’s current forecast comes true.

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