Requirements for the Production of a Synthetic Crude Oil from Athabasca Tar Sands

Hemming, DF (1976). Requirements for the Production of a Synthetic Crude Oil from Athabasca Tar Sands. ERG Report 15; Energy Research Group, The Open University, Milton Keynes.

Abstract

Having carried out an energy analysis of syncrude derived from oil shales it seemed appropriate to investigate other sources of synthetic oil. Tar sands occur in a number of places throughout the world (Canada, Venezuela, United States, Malagasy, Albania, Trinidad, Columbia, USSR, Thailand, Iran etc) but the only commercial development to date has been at the Great Canadian Oil Sands (GCOS) lease at the Athabasca deposit in Alberta, Canada, and this report is based largely on operating experience at GCOS. Although one is fortunate to be in a position to use actual plant data it must be borne in mind that GCOS is a first generation tar sand plant and one should be aware of the limitations of making board generalisations by extrapolating from the results of the analysis of GCOS operations. So while this report is based on a proved technology (GCOS has been operating since 1967) more advanced techniques would almost certainly be used now and the scale of operations would be greater (a proposed scheme by Syncrude Canada Limited would produce 125,000 bbls of syncrude/calendar day compared with 45,000-50,000 bbls/calendar day at GCOS).

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