Impact of pressure on thermal conversion in bitumen upgrading

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Bitumen extracted from Canadian oil sands is too viscous and dense for transportation in pipelines. The problem is typically addressed by admixing with solvents, which increases the demand for pipeline capacity and imposes associated environmental and economic disadvantages. The Industrial Partner of this project, Syncrude Canada Ltd., produces partially upgraded crude oil that is suitable for direct transportation in the pipelines. The technology includes a fluid coking process, in which heavy feed is cracked to lighter products. The project aims to assess some parameters, which possibly impact the desired product yield. The results will be useful to understand the processes occurring in the industrial fluid coker and contribute to its optimization. Higher target product yields from the industrial coker imply more efficient use of the extracted bitumen, reduced volumes of tailings, lower energy demand, and thus emission reduction in oil sands operations.