B - Operations – Transporting – 03 – B
Patent
B - Operations, Transporting
03
B
B03B 9/02 (2006.01)
Patent
CA 2123719
Bitumen (heavy oil) deposits are found in many countries but particularly in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan. Many of these deposits contain oil so heavy that only a small fraction (or none) of the oil can be recovered by conventional drilling: oil from these deposits are high in carbon and sulfur and low in hydrogen content; the cost to recover the bitumen product and up-grade it into marketable liquid fuels for modern transportation has been very high. It is an object of this invention to introduce new up-grading methods that will simplify up-grading and substantially reduce the costs; also to introduce methods to treat the coke content so it can become an environmentaly acceptable fuel for the production of energy. Two well developed methods are used to up-grade bitumen! Suncor uses DELAYED COKING, while Syncrude has adopted a method known as FLUID COKINGg; these 2 systems are known as carbon deletion, removing coke from the volatile liquid content of the bitumen: the coke being removed from the bitumen has a high sulphur content (+-8%) making it unacceptable as a fuel; Syncrude stock piles their coke, choosing rather to use natural gas as fuel, Suncor uses some of the coke as fuel for its operations but must lime treat the flue gases to remove SO2 to make the fuel environmentaly acceptable, the remainder of the coke is stock piled. A May issue of the Times Herald reported that Suncor plans to spend $175 mm over the next several years to up-grade their flue gas treatment facilities, to make their flue gases more environmentaly acceptable.
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