JADAR

The Oil Sands

The Resources

Alberta's oil sands contain the biggest known reserve of oil in the world. An estimated 1.7 to 2.5 trillion barrels of oil are trapped in a complex mixture of sand, water and clay. The most prominent theory of how this vast resource was formed suggests that light crude oil from southern Alberta migrated north and east with the same pressures that formed the Rocky Mountains. Over time, the actions of water and bacteria transformed the light crude into bitumen, a much heavier, carbon rich, and extremely viscous oil. The percentage of bitumen in oil sand can range from 1% -20%. The oil saturated sand deposits left over from ancient rivers in three main areas, Peace River, Cold Lake and Athabasca. The Athabasca area is the largest and closest to the surface, accounting for the large-scale oil sands development around Fort McMurray.

The Oil Sands Mining

Since the 1920's, open pit mining has been central to oil sands development. Mine equipment from the early years was scaled up significantly when large commercial operations started to come on line. The first large scale commercial operation, Great Canadian Oil Sands (now Suncor Energy), introduced German manufacturer O&K bucket wheels from the coal mining industry when they opened in 1967. Syncrude Canada Limited opened in 1978 and introduced gigantic draglines 60 times as large as the bucket on display from Bitumount, the first commercial oil sands plant. These large machines were connected to the processing plant by a system of conveyor belts. Today, large trucks and shovels have replaced draglines and bucket wheels as a more selective, and cost effective way to mine oil sands. The process begins by clearing trees, draining and storing the overburden and then removing this top layer of earth to expose the ore body. The equipment must be durable and strong enough to withstand extreme climate and abrasive oil sand. Mining never stops, the trucks and other equipment work day and night, every day of the year. Planning is an essential and continuous part of the process.

Geologists, surveyors and mine engineers play a considerable role in the mine planning process before any heavy equipment is introduced. The mine plan must commit to return the area to it's former environmental condition. G.P.S. is used extensively to pinpoint mining areas.

Extraction

The scientists working for the Alberta Research Council, developed and patented the hot water extraction technique. Building on earlier experimentation by Sidney Ells and others which used hot water to separate oil from oil sands, Dr. Clark's work brought the process to a commercial scale. Oil sand is mixed with hot water creating a slurry. Early methods used large tumbler drums to condition the slurry. Today, hydro transport pipelines are used to condition and transport the oil sand from the mine to the extraction plant. The slurry is fed into a separation vessel where it separates into three layers - sand, water and bitumen. The bitumen is then skimmed off the top to be cleaned and processed further. Secondary recoveries are made with the middlings zone of the separation vessels to return the smaller quantities of bitumen that would otherwise flow to the settling ponds. Ph levels and temperature are key variables in the process.

In situ

About 80% of the oil sands in Alberta are buried too deep below the surface for open pit mining. This oil must be recovered by in situ techniques. Using drilling technology, steam is injected into the deposit to heat the oil sand lowering the viscosity of the bitumen. The hot bitumen migrates towards producing wells, bringing it to the surface, while the sand is left in place ("in situ" is Latin for "in place"). Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is a type of in situ technology that uses innovation in horizontal drilling to produce bitumen. In situ technology is expensive and requires certain conditions like a nearby water source. Production from in situ already rivals open pit mining and in the future may well replace mining as the main source of bitumen production from the oil sands. Challenges facing in situ process are efficient recoveries, management of water used to make steam, and co-generation of all (otherwise waste) heat sources to minimize energy costs. Other methods of in situ recovery look promising, and are in research stages of development.

Up grading

The oil in oil sand is called bitumen, a complex hydrocarbon made up of a long chain of molecules. In order for bitumen to be processed in refineries, this chain must be broken up and reorganized. Unlike smaller hydrocarbon molecules bitumen is carbon rich and hydrogen poor. Upgrading means removing some carbon while adding additional hydrogen to make more valuable hydrocarbon products. This is done using four main processes: coking removes carbon and breaks large bitumen molecules into smaller parts, distillation sorts mixtures of hydrocarbon molecules into their components, catalytic conversions help transform hydrocarbons into more valuable forms and hydrotreating is used to help remove sulphur and nitrogen and add hydrogen to molecules. The end product is synthetic crude oil, which is shipped by underground pipelines to refineries across North America to be refined further into jet fuels, gasoline and other petroleum products.

It must be noted that some of the oil companies pipe their bitumen south in diluted form for upgrading at other refineries. Others produce either a single high quality synthetic crude oil or multiple petroleum products to suit market feedstock demand.

The Environment

Once the final product is shipped by pipeline to refineries, an environmental footprint remains. This can include open pit mine holes, process water dykes and emissions. Minimizing the impact to the environment begins by understanding the complexity of eco-systems. This information is used to help develop reclamation plans that determine how to return productive areas, to a self- sustaining, productive state, as required by all lease agreements. An important part of this process is state of the art environmental monitoring programs and communication with stakeholders including environmental groups and aboriginal people. This is an area of ongoing research activity, and while improvements in environmental stewardship have been made, huge challenges remain. Protecting the environment is a shared responsibility involving industry, government and consumers of hydrocarbon products. These products include gasoline, fuel for our homes, and petroleum chemical products like plastics, fleece and even toothpaste!

Oil Sands Mining Technology

MIGHTY MINING MACHINES

Mining oil sands is an enormous process, which requires extremely large machines. The original mining process has evolved and changed as new innovations in equipment and techniques allow the process to become more efficient and economical. In the early 1900’s, when people began mining oil sand, the operation was completely manual. Technology has come a long way since then! Many different types of machines are used to remove the overburden (the muskeg and layers of soil over top of the oil sands deposit) to prepare the area for surface mining. Bulldozers, backhoes, loaders, water trucks, scrapers, side booms and graders are all used to move the overburden, which is saved to use in reclamation. When Suncor started in 1967, as Great Canadian Oil Sands, they mined oil sand with huge bucket wheel excavators. The bucket wheel excavator would dig directly into the open mine pit.

The oil sand would be picked up by the buckets and deposited onto a conveyor belt system that would transport the oil sand from the mine into the extraction plant.

When Syncrude opened in 1978, they were using draglines (the largest walking machines on earth) and bucket wheel reclaimers. The dragline would deposit the oil sand into a pile called a windrow. The bucket wheel reclaimer would then scoop up the oil sand from the windrow and deposit the oil sand onto a conveyor belt system that would move the oil sand into the extraction plant. The use of draglines and bucket wheel reclaimers will be phased out by 2005/2006.

Today Suncor, Syncrude and Albian Sands are all using the same mining technology – truck and shovel. The move from draglines and bucket wheels to truck and shovel mining is mainly due to cost and efficiency. The shovels can move more easily to select the richest oil sand and ignore low-grade ore. Truck and shovel mining is more mobile, requires less maintenance and has much less effect on general production if there is an equipment break down.

Open pit mining is done in benches or steps. These benches are each approximately 12-15 metres high. Giant shovels dig the oil sand and place it into heavy hauler trucks that range in size from 240 ton to the largest trucks, which have a 400-ton capacity. The trucks dump the oil sand into sizers or crushers, which break up the big chunks of oil sand to prepare it for transport into the plant. The sizers are the largest of their kind ever manufactured.

The oil sands companies have had to adapt some of the equipment to meet the unique needs of the industry. For example, a crawler tractor used to build up walls of the tailing ponds has its radiator and cooling fan on top of the cab. This prevents oil particles, water and sludge from getting into the radiator, causing the engine to overheat. The 150-ton truck on display at the Oil Sands Discovery Centre is a baby compared to the size of the newer heavy haulers.

Mining Fast Facts:

The replacement cost of a Dragline is approximately $110 million! The bucket size of the Dragline is 68 cubic metres (89 cubic yards), which is approximately the size of a two-car garage!

The replacement cost of a Bucket wheel Reclaimer is $35 million!
Conveyor belts cost $1,000 per foot to purchase and maintain!
At the peak of conveyor belt use Syncrude had 30km and Suncor had 8 km of conveyor belt in their mines!
The conveyor belt used at Albian Sands is one of the largest in width at 96 inches!

Heavy Hauler Trucks

Caterpillar 777 (100 ton), Caterpillar 793 (240 ton), Komat’su 830E (240 ton), Komat’su 930E (320 or 340 ton), Caterpillar 797 (360 & 380 ton) and Caterpillar 797B (400 ton), and Liebherr (400 ton) haul trucks currently in use.

Caterpillar 797 truck empty weight: 557,820 kg (1,230,000 lbs.)

- Drive: 3524B EUI twin turbocharged and after cooled diesel engine

- Max Speed: 64 km/h or 40 mph

- Horse Power: 3500

- Suspension: self contained oil pneumatic suspension cylinder on each wheel

- Height empty: 7.1 metres (23ft 8in) Length: 14.3 metres (47ft 7in) Body Width: 9.0 metres (30ft)

- Dumping Height: 14.8 metres (49ft 3in)

- Tire Size: 3.8 metres (12.9ft) in diameter

- Cost: $5 - 6 million

Caterpillar 797B empty weight: 623,690 kg (1,375,000 lbs)

- Drive: 3524B Series, 24cylinder, four-stroke cycle, diesel engine

- Max Speed: 67 km/h or 42 mph

- Horse Power: 3550

- Suspension: independent, self-contained, oil-pneumatic suspension cylinder on each wheel

- Height empty: 7.6 metres (24ft 11in) Length: 14.5 metres (47ft 5in) Body Width: 9.8 metres (32ft)

- Dumping Height: 15.3 metres (50ft 2in)

- Fuel capacity: 6,814 L or 1,800 US gallons

- Cost: $5 – 6 million

Shovels

O & K RH400 Hydraulic Shovel

- Powered by: 2 Cummins QSK60 Diesel Engines (2000 hp ea) or 2 Caterpillar 3516 Diesel Engines (2200hp ea)

- Fuel Capacity: 16 000 litres – allows 24 hr continuous operation without refueling

- Bucket Capacity: 80-90 tonnes

- Maximum Dig Height: 17.1 metres (57ft 1in)

- Hydraulics: 10 000 litres Hydraulic Fluid, 5000 PSI Operating Pressure, 8 main pumps move 8000 litres per minute, produces 2100kg or 471,930lbs of breakout-force

- Under-Carriage: World’s largest final drive transmission, 1.8 km/h, 2000mm wide track shoes

- Cost: $12 million

-P & H 4100TS Cable Shovel

-Working weight: 1,351,558 kg (2,977,000lbs)

-Suspended load capacity: 154,360 kg (340,000 lbs)

-Dipper capacity: 47.4 cubic metres -voltage: 15,000 volts

-Boom length: 21.34 m (69.4 feet)

-Travel speed: 0.84 km/h (0.52 mph)

-Crawl shoes: 3.54 metres (138 inches)

-Cost: $17 million

Bucyrus’ 495HF Electric Rope Shovel

- Gross working weight: 1,315,000 kg (2, 900,000 lbs)