Online Monitoring of Bitumen Content in Oil Sands Using Differential Light Radar

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Crude oil exports from Canada has exceeded 3.3 Million Barrels per Day, which represents a value of $66.86 billion in 2017. A challenge for Canadian oil industry is that it is inherently costly to extract bitumen from oil sands. Further cost reduction will make Canadian oil industry more competitive and reduce its environmental impact. The current water-based oil sands extraction process consists of multiple steps requiring continuous parameter adjustment. Because of a lack of effective on-line monitoring tools, the adjustment relies on the experience of the operators, which often is not optimal and introduces unnecessary consumption of resources. Therefore, developing reliable on-line methods to monitor the process streams is important for improving the process control in bitumen extraction plants. The proposal aims to investigate applications of light radar (LiDAR) in oil sands extraction processes to provide online quantitative analysis of bitumen content in oil sands. LiDAR illuminates a target with laser beams and analyze various types of backscattered signals to measure sample properties. The results can be used to optimize the bitumen extraction process, reduce the environmental impact, and enhance the competitiveness of Canadian petroleum industry.