Publication: Oil and Gas Network
Heavy Oil the Future of Alberta?
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Petrobank offers a solution to increase production of heavy oil in a demanding oil industry that caters to a global market. The solution is producing more heavy oil. “There is probably three times of heavy oil in the world compared to light to medium oil,” said Chris Bloomer, SVP and COO Heavy Oil, Director of Petrobank.
A fundamentally technology driven company, Petrobank is moving beyond the pilot stage of their technology THAI™ and are in the feed engineering stage of their product, now moving to commercial.
THAI™ is an evolutionary new configuration for in-situ combustion which combines a horizontal production well with a vertical air injection well placed at the toe.
“We have basically proven in the past three years [why] we use this technology and demonstrated it,” said Bloomer. “It’s a heavy world going forward, it’s all about heavy oil,” he added.
The system designed by Petrobank has no corrosion in the pipes making it very straightforward.
It has no delay, “we inject the air and get the combustion,” said Bloomer. The process does not use pumps and works completely on gas pressures.
The line drive combustion is ideal for oil. Its horizontal design results in oil having a lower permeable point. Bloomer said Petrobank knows conclusively that air in equal’s air out daily in their system. The production is at approximately 12 degrees API and therefore has very low viscosity.
“This is dramatic, day in day out pipe line spec oil,” said Bloomer. “[This is the] only place in the world where this is being done,” he added.
The THAI™ system also has lower environmental impact because of its negligible fresh water usage, 50 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions, smaller surface footprint and easier reclamation.
Still a technology company, Petrobank is looking at enhancing creative technology.
“We want to build an integrated technology that has long term sustainability,” said Bloomer.
“This is cookie card, design one build away,” he added.
Our Planet: Small, Flat, Smart
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IBM gave a glimpse of what they call a smarter planet, at the gas and oil exposition this year. The world is smaller and flatter and this evolution to a smarter planet has impacted our ability to deal with goods and services.
Steve Edwards, a Partner of IBM Global Business Services, said the use of interconnected technologies is going to change the world. A global world means frozen credit markets and limited access to capital, economic downturn and future uncertainty, concern for climate change and volatility in price and demand for energy worldwide.
There is little doubt that the world is connected economically, socially and technically. “Globalization produces many benefits but challenges as well,” said Edwards. In a new world of interconnectedness the need for progress is clear.
On an average it takes 90,000 man hours to execute turnaround effort every two years on an offshore platform. By adopting best in class asset management strategies the amount of man hours spend can be reduced by 10 per cent.
New technologies that can make seismic mapping efficient by 85 per cent, increase 1.5per cent of oil recovery and improve asset utilization by 10 per cent also exist.
The three key factors to be successful in these changing times are to meet the worlds growing requirements of energy, energy affordability and environmental impact.
IBM emphasizes the need to transform raw data into actionable insight. To do so companies need to become instrumented, interconnected and intelligent.
There are now 1 billion transistors for each person on the planet.
“We have an internet community of one billion people, we have four billion mobile phone subscribers,” said Edwards. This technology can then mould itself to a consumers need and help connect with others in entirely new ways. The intelligence then propels the system further, bringing it all together.
“What makes it the mark solution is the intelligence, it is the next step we need to make,” he said. Using intelligent technology also enables companies to make quick and accurate changes to plans and ensures better results by predicting and optimizing for future events.
Adapting this technology is risk free and many companies are following IBM’s footsteps, some of which have collaborated with IBM.
Calgary can speed up its ability to do reservoir modeling by five to fifteen per cent.
This is important to ensure global supply of [oil], retain decade’s worth of expertise and because it is possible to do some of these things now.
“You can first time really look at a range of operations and fields, something that is actually very hard to do,” said Edwards.
IBM invites companies as they move forward to harness “the ability to make the world smarter and [an] easier place to live,” he added.
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Afina Energy’s technology may be the answer for making SAGD green in a world where being environmentally friendly is becoming increasingly important. “We are looking at developing a commercial prototype,” says Guido Bachmann, CEO of Afina Energy.
SAGD can be green, says Bachmann, and should be in light of the continuous negative attention the oil and gas industry receives. Though the “dirty oil card” will continue he says.
“SAGD producers have to think about this like energy producers need to think of global warming,” he says. It does not matter if global warming is happening or not when a large population believes it, therefore action must be taken. “Here we go, it’s starting, and it’s starting now,” he added.
Post carbon removal is too costly making pre carbon removal the easier option. The BioSyn Gasification Process, a Canadian developed technology, reduces environmental impact in SAGD operations via low severity gasification. The process goes through thermal oxidization of feedstock. “It[the process] does reduce environmental impact,” said Bachmann. The cool down and heating session of this technology is significantly less in comparison with current technologies. The expected efficiency of the Afina system is approximately 50 per cent higher with much lower utility and operation costs as well. This system requires 1000kPa of pressure compared to the current average requirements of 10,000 kPa.
“[The] Gasification process is not in itself enough,” said Bachmann. An additional oil processing island would remove the top end of the diluent and the bottom end of oil. The recovered diluent would be sent back to SAGD.
The systems modules are sized for 10,000 BDP but can be smaller or larger, using multiple modes, if necessary. At this point a consumer of this system can decide what they want to do with the syngas.
By using this process companies can acquire gas credits and avoid 90 per cent of carbon emissions in comparison to natural gas. Almost all of the CO2 of syngas is removed in this process.
Bachmann predicts that conservation of water will be the next concern after carbon emissions. “Water is even more important,” he said. Not only does the low severity gasification to SAGD significantly reduce carbon emissions it also reduces waste water disposal, diluent usage and associate transport, energy intensity of SAGD operations, and gives producers the ability to produce the environmental products from syngas.
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