Development of new chromatographic approaches for bitumen characterization, solvent detection, and water-cut measurements for production surveillance

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Stringent environmental measures and recent low commodity prices have motivated the oil sands industry to invest in more energy efficient and novel recovery technologies. Solvent-aided and solvent-based processes have shown promise in mitigation of negative environmental impacts of oil sands and reduction of energy and water usage. Precise measurements of the composition of the produced fluids at harsh conditions associated with the solvent-aided thermal recovery methods are extremely challenging. Currently, universal and reliable techniques for solvent detection (i.e., amount of solvent in the produced bitumen), water-cut detection (i.e., volume and/or mass of water in produced stream) and bitumen characterization (i.e., composition and molecular weight distribution) are lacking. An accurate and reliable production surveillance process is essential for monitoring, controlling, and performance evaluation of solvent-aided processes during pilot phase and field scale operations. In this project, cost effective, fast, and reliable chromatographic techniques will be developed to address some of the challenges oil sands industry is facing in measurements of water-cut, solvent detection, and bitumen compositional analysis. These analytical techniques are valuable for finding effective solvents and injection strategies (i.e., solvent/steam ratio). The outcomes of this project advance flow measurement techniques at harsh conditions and provide the oil sands industry with necessary techniques to implement a reliable production surveillance process. Implementation of these measurement techniques in field scale operations will have a great impact on economics of the oil sands industry and thus the economy of Canada. The proposed research in this proposal provides an opportunity to train two PhD, one MSc and four undergraduate students in an area critical to the Alberta oil sands industry.