Let's talk about the Canada oil sands

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Originally Posted by BrandonT
And of that 16% I'm not sure how much is actual oil sands. This requires expensive metal upgrades to refiners' Crude units and I know of only a couple that have in CO, MN, and I think IL and MT. Not the Gulf coast, East coast, or West coast, which you can imagine are the big players.


Here are the 2016 numbers:

Heavy Conventional Oil. (not from Oil Sands) 800,000 bbls per day
Heavy Diluted Bitumen ( Bitumen from Oilsands diluted with condensate, known as " Dillbit" ) 880,00 bbls/ day.
Light Synthetic Crude ( processed from Oil Sands Bitumen) 730,000 bbls per day

Total from Oilsands (including the condensate portion which is normally derived from natural gas production) 1.6 million bbls/day.

Most of it (70 %) goes to the PADD 2 Midwest refining complex. Another 20% goes to the PADD 3 Gulf Coast refining complex.

The 2018 numbers are up by 600,000 bbls/day, which means the Oilsands portion is currently 2.2 million bbls/day.

As soon is the Keystone XL pipeline is complete, this will rise another 800,000 bbls per day, again, mostly Dillbit. Dillbit is known as WCS, Western Canadian Select and competes with Venezuelan and Mexican heavy crudes, both of which are declining in volume.

Hope that helps.
 
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Originally Posted by 53' Stude
I hear that there is a lot of acres where the oil sands are. Seems like lots of work to remove the oil from it. Is this a feasible form of oil or easier than drilling for crude elsewhere? I don't know much about it so thought I would inquire


Yes, lots of work, lots of steam and hot water, but because of the Oilsands, Canada has the third highest oil reserves on the planet. Less than half is accessible by open pit mining. The rest is accessed with pairs of horizontal wells. Steam is injected into the upper leg and hot Bitumen is pumped out of the lower leg.

The reserves exist, so it makes sense to go after them. Profitability varies but longer term it is working out. Currently prices are suppressed because the pipelines are full and traders are taking advantage of that. This may change with more pipeline capacity as well as export venues elsewhere in the future.
 
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot


Total from Oilsands (including the condensate portion which is normally derived from natural gas production) 1.6 million bbls/day.

The 2018 numbers are up by 600,000 bbls/day, which means the Oilsands portion is currently 2.2 million bbls/day.




So almost exactly the 10% I guessed. I wonder who the PADD 3 refiner(s) is that is using oil sands?
 
[/quote]
So almost exactly the 10% I guessed. I wonder who the PADD 3 refiner(s) is that is using oil sands?[/quote]

I believe it's mostly Exxon. They own a large chunk of Bitumen production in Canada through Syncrude and partnered with their Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Oil. I guess It makes sense to operate as a integrated company.
 
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Here is the 25 cent geology lesson for any one interested. The entire sedimentary basin in Alberta slopes from the south west upward to the northeast. In the southwest zones can be at 4000 m. In the north east they can actually outcrop at surface. Over hundreds of millions of years oil migrated to the northeast, only to be stopped by a shale prior to reaching surface. In late geologic time the Athabasca river cut through the shale, allowing the light ends, propane, butane, methane etc to evaporate into the atmosphere. What was left behind is over 189 billion bbls of Bitumen mixed with sand. It's unfortunate but it is difficult to remove from the sand and requires copious amounts of hot water and steam. Are we going to walk away from this. No way. We'll keep trying to improve the technology until we get it all out.
 
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Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
Here is the 25 cent geology lesson for any one interested. The entire sedimentary basin in Alberta slopes from the south west upward to the northeast. In the southwest zones can be at 4000 m. In the north east they can actually outcrop at surface. Over hundreds of millions of years oil migrated to the northeast, only to be stopped by a shale prior to reaching surface. In late geologic time the Athabasca river cut through the shale, allowing the light ends, propane, butane, methane etc to evaporate into the atmosphere. What was left behind is over 189 billion bbls of Bitumen mixed with sand. It's unfortunate but it is difficult to remove from the sand and requires copious amounts of hot water and steam. Are we going to walk away from this. No way. We'll keep trying to improve the technology until we get it all out.



Very good info guys. Now, my dumb question is who has the largest crude reserves? Isn't it the Middle east still
 
Originally Posted by A_Harman
Nothing good comes easy!
It's a lot of work to drill for oil in 5000+ feet of ocean, 100 miles offshore.
It's a lot of work to drill for oil through 30,000 feet of dirt and rock.
It's a lot of work to inject water and chemicals to fracture subterranean shale formations so an oil well can be drilled to extract the oil.
It seems fairly easy by comparison just to dig up the tar sands and heat it to extract the oil.
I look upon it as humans doing environmental remediation on pollution that nature caused.


Well said
 
Originally Posted by 53' Stude
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
Here is the 25 cent geology lesson for any one interested. The entire sedimentary basin in Alberta slopes from the south west upward to the northeast. In the southwest zones can be at 4000 m. In the north east they can actually outcrop at surface. Over hundreds of millions of years oil migrated to the northeast, only to be stopped by a shale prior to reaching surface. In late geologic time the Athabasca river cut through the shale, allowing the light ends, propane, butane, methane etc to evaporate into the atmosphere. What was left behind is over 189 billion bbls of Bitumen mixed with sand. It's unfortunate but it is difficult to remove from the sand and requires copious amounts of hot water and steam. Are we going to walk away from this. No way. We'll keep trying to improve the technology until we get it all out.



Very good info guys. Now, my dumb question is who has the largest crude reserves? Isn't it the Middle east still

Venezuela has the largest proven reserves but their crudes are also difficult to get to market and difficukt to process.
 
Originally Posted by Nyogtha
Venezuela has the largest proven reserves but their crudes are also difficult to get to market and difficukt to process.


That's why I believe that fuels should be (legislated to be ???) used by their "utility" value.

Electricity generation - coal/nukes, and those "renewables" that take huge swathes of land and materials to produce...from stationary stuff.
NG - should be heating and transport, home fuel cells for generation, heat, and hot water.
Oil - transport, and that only.

Venezuela...hmmm...that Orimulsion is OK for (Big) diesels, GTs, stationary power etc. etc....there's a place for it...there's been some serious research in Oz using micronized coal slurry in stationary diesels.

Currently with market "pricing", we'll use all the good stuff for often the wrong application, then have to "make do" with sub optimal solutions moving forward.

Like Sydney...best farmland in the state is now covered by concrete, roads, and houses...the next best isn't as fertile, isn't as reliably watered...but according to economists, the most economically efficient solution has been reached...i.e. Sydney land prices PROVE that it should be used for houses, as you can't raise crops and make a profit on it.
 
Originally Posted by Shannow
Originally Posted by Nyogtha
Venezuela has the largest proven reserves but their crudes are also difficult to get to market and difficukt to process.


That's why I believe that fuels should be (legislated to be ???) used by their "utility" value.

Electricity generation - coal/nukes, and those "renewables" that take huge swathes of land and materials to produce...from stationary stuff.
NG - should be heating and transport, home fuel cells for generation, heat, and hot water.
Oil - transport, and that only.

Venezuela...hmmm...that Orimulsion is OK for (Big) diesels, GTs, stationary power etc. etc....there's a place for it...there's been some serious research in Oz using micronized coal slurry in stationary diesels.

Currently with market "pricing", we'll use all the good stuff for often the wrong application, then have to "make do" with sub optimal solutions moving forward.

Like Sydney...best farmland in the state is now covered by concrete, roads, and houses...the next best isn't as fertile, isn't as reliably watered...but according to economists, the most economically efficient solution has been reached...i.e. Sydney land prices PROVE that it should be used for houses, as you can't raise crops and make a profit on it.

IIRC PDVSA stopped producing Orimulsion some time ago. I recall a push in the 90's for its use for electric power generation especially in Florida. I didn't follow that closely as it was outside my career focus.
 
It is a filthy nasty fuel to extract. It uses huge amounts of fresh water and energy to process it. It is not as cheap to extract as regular oil in the ground. Since most is strip mined or pit mined it affects large amounts of land.
 
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It's a no brainer! You move chemicals from the ground, burn them and put them in the air....it's gunna warm the planet, especially carbon based oil!!
 
Originally Posted by Snagglefoot
Top 5 for oil reserves:

1. Venezuela
2. Saudi Arabia
3. Canada
4. Iran
5. Iraq

russia?
 
Its hard to believe Oil Sands are profitable at the current market price. Gasoline (petrol) prices are still pretty low now.
 
I watched a CBC documentary on the Oil Sands in Canada some time ago and they said that we had enough oil to power every car in North America for the next 100 years however it's a pain to get it out of the ground.
 
Sand in Canada?I thought snow was your thing instead. My dad retired from oil business and was telling me its not clean either so lots of energy spent.
 
The heavy Venezuelan crude grades are also more difficult to extract and get to market, and more difficult to refine, but it's internal national oil company PDVSA inefficiency and corruption especially after Chavez fired all PDVSA workers who went on strike against the government last decade that have slowed production there. Canada got a lot of heavy oil extraction and processing know-how as those who knew how left Venezuela. Meanwhile Canadian production increased and Husky bought several US refineries and a partial interest in another US refinery as outlets for the oil they produce, reconfiguring these plants as necessary, instead of building grass-roots upgraders. Marathon withdrew their 25% intetest in a Canadian production and upgrading facility, using the cash to acquire other US refineries and companies, while their Detroit refinery was reconfigured for increased heavy Canadian crude. BP Whiting also had a revamp project to increase processing of heavy Canadian crude. Stable and growing supplies from a stable neighbor.
 
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Originally Posted by BMWTurboDzl
Oil sands require a tremendous amount of water and a lot of earth moving. Think of an open pit mine the size of Rhode Island. It is possibly the most energy intensive form of oil extraction there is.

Yea...its an environmental disaster.
 
Originally Posted by A_Harman
Nothing good comes easy!
It's a lot of work to drill for oil in 5000+ feet of ocean, 100 miles offshore.
It's a lot of work to drill for oil through 30,000 feet of dirt and rock.
It's a lot of work to inject water and chemicals to fracture subterranean shale formations so an oil well can be drilled to extract the oil.
It seems fairly easy by comparison just to dig up the tar sands and heat it to extract the oil.
I look upon it as humans doing environmental remediation on pollution that nature caused.


.
 
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