International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 3, Issue 4, April-2012 1

ISSN 2229-5518

Development and Application of Oil Sand

Xiaoming Zhang, Yi Pan
Liaoning Shihua University, Fushun, China

Abstract— the oil sands is one kind of sand-like unconventional ore resources depositing of crude oil, it is made up of asphalt, minerals,
clay and water in a way of conjuncting with each other. Oil and natural gas are important energy and chemical raw materials, its resources
are gradually reduced. With the rapid development of the global economy, the conventional oil resources can’t meet the rapid growth of oil
demand, people began turning to unconventional oil resources, one of which is the oil sands. Oil sands is unconventional oil resources, if
its proven reserves are converted into oil, it will be much larger than the world's proven oil reserves. Canadian oil sands reserves stand
ahead in the world, followed by the former Soviet Union, Venezuela, the United States and China. However, due to its special properties,
different mining and processing technology, and higher mining costs compared with conventional oil, the research of oil sands makes slow
progress. At present, due to the rising of world oil price, oil sands mining technology have attracted more and more attention, and have
developed a lot.

Index Terms — oil sands, mining, alternative energy, application, enery resource, unconventional energy.

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1 INTRODUCTION

T he oil sands is one kind of sand-like unconventional ore

resources depositing of crude oil, it is made up of asphalt,
minerals, clay and water in a way of conjuncting with
2.1 Open-pit Mining
The process of open-pit mining is: first, remove the oil sands
each other. Asphalt is its main ingredient, whose content can on the first cover, and then mine by the open-pit mining tech-
be accounted for 1% to 20%. Oil sands formed in Cretaceous. niques. The exploited oil sands were then shipped to the factories
There are more than 70 countries in the world that reserve oil to separate asphalt, sand and other non-hydrocarbon substances.
sands, but more than 90% of the proven oil sands reserves And finally, convert the separated asphalt into synthetic crude oil.
concentrate in Canada at present; if all these oil sands resource Surface mining method can take out more than 90% of the oil.
were exploited, according to the current level of the world The hydrocarbons, sulfur, metals and rocks in the oil sands have
energy needs, they can be used 100 years by the world. Oil been utilized to the fullest. There are only 10% of the oil sands
sands asphalt is usually the organic mixture of hydrocarbon around the world that can use open-pit mining technology to
and non-hydrocarbon, it is a viscous semi-solid substance, mine. Open-pit mining has a better asphalt recycle rate than other
containing about 80% of carbon, certain hydrogen, and a small methods, and it is technically more mature. There have formed
amounts of nitrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and trace metals. Oil large-scale industrial mining in Canada and Venezuela. The Syn-
sands is one of the main sources of man-made oil .Through crude company in Canada is the world's largest manufacturer that
mining, extraction , separation, modification, we can get syn-
produces oil from oil sands, who engaged in the open-pit mining
thetic crude oil from it, and the separated clean sand can be
activities in the Athabasca. Its open-pit mining technology of oil
used as construction materials or used for backfill process.
sands leads the world.
To modify the running headings, select View | Header and
Footer. Click inside the text box to type the name of the journal 2.2 In-situ mining
the article is being submitted to and the manuscript identifica- The site separation method that is used to exploit deep under-
tion number. Click the forward arrow in the pop-up tool bar to ground oil sands has also been very mature. This approach is to
modify the header or footer on subsequent pages.
heat and dilute the asphalt to be flowable in the underground, and
then pump the flowable asphalt to the ground. Nowadays, widely
2 EXPLOITATION TECHNIC used methods are as following:
Oil sands differ greatly from conventional oil and natural gas, 1) Cyclic steam stimulation (CSS): cyclic steam stimulation,
in the original state, it is difficult to use ordinary methods to also known as cyclic steam injection, steam soak, or steam
mine. In order to exploit it, special treatment is needed. Accord- production and so on, is injecting high-pressure steam into
ing to the differences of the depth of oil sand reserves, the mining the oil sands formations, shut-in for a few weeks, use heat to
methods of oil sands can be divided into in situ mining and open- soften the asphalt, use the water vapor to dilute the bitumen
pit mining. The combining of thermal recovery and chemical and make the asphalt and sand separate, and then open the
flooding method can improve the production rate and oil recov- wells to pump the bitumen that can flow to the surface[1]. In
ery rate, it is a promising method. Hot alkaline extraction method addition, through the application of chemicals, the viscosity
is the most widely used method of open-pit mining, but it will of heavy crude oil will reduce, this can improve heavy oil’s
cause serious environmental pollution. When combining with mobility in the reservoir and on the ground, improve the state
surfactant, this method can improve the recovery rate of asphalt, of steam stimulation, enhance oil recovery [2]. Its main ad-
lower production costs, reduce environmental pollution. vantage is the immediate producing of oil after the project be
implemented, while its main limitation is that it can exploit
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 3, Issue 4, April-2012 2
ISSN 2229-5518

20%of the original underground reserves[3]. Steam-assisted duce, the expansion of the compressed gas and crude oil can
gravity drainage method (SAGD): Drill two wells in parallel produce more oil, and heat the crude oil at the same treat-
to the oil sands formations, one up, one down, then conti- ment. Due to expansion, the viscosity of crude oil will re-
nuously injecting steam to the upper well, when the steam duce.
heat the oil formation, oil Sands will be softened and flow by 7) In Situ combustion: In Situ combustion uses electricity and
gravity to the below well, then be pumped to the ground. At chemical methods such to burn oil reservoir to increase its
present, this production technology can harvest 25% to 75% temperature to burn point. In the meantime, inject air to al-
of the underground storage of asphalt, which is far greater low the crude oil to burn continuously[5]. The disadvantages
than conventional light oil recovery. UTF Consortium’s ap- include that the implementation of in situ combustion
plication in ForMt cMurray area is SAGD technology. The process is difficult. Controlling the underground combustion
future development of oil sands is expected to mainly depend is also not easy. Also, the cost of injecting a mass of high-
on the combination of CSS technology and SAGD technolo- pressure air into the reservoir is high. Usually, this method
gy, which will surely become the 21st century's major com- uses when steam flooding method is not applicable, especial-
mercial mining method. ly in the thin layers or deep layers whose crude oil is of me-
2) gy developed in Canada in recent years is a new mining dium density.
technology. To the underground heavy oil t steam-assisted
gravity drainage method (SAGD) [4]: Drill two wells in pa-
rallel to the oil sands formations, one up, one down, then 3 OIL SEPARATION TECHNOLOGY
continuously injecting steam to the upper well, when the
Currently, there are three main kinds of oil sands separation
steam heat the oil formation, oil Sands will be softened and
technology at abroad-hot water washing method, solvent extrac-
flow by gravity to the below well, then be pumped to the
tion method, pyrolysis distillation method. Different oil sands
ground. At present, this production technology can harvest
structures may use different separation methods. Generally, moist
25% to 75% of the underground storage of asphalt, which is
oil sands are for washing method, oily sand for organic solvent
far greater than conventional light oil recovery. UTF Consor- extraction or pyrolysis distillation separation. Thermo-chemical
tium’s application in ForMt cMurray area is SAGD technol- washing method and distillation ATP will be the main ground
ogy. The future development of oil sands is expected to separation methods of oil sand in the future, which are still domi-
mainly depend on the combination of CSS technology and
nated by chemical washing. But with the rising of the oil prices,
SAGD technology, which will surely become the 21st cen-
ATP carbonization technology will have a period of vigorous
tury's major commercial mining method.
development [5].
3) Vapor extraction technology of the underground horizontal
Domestic oil sands separation technology is still stay in the
wells (VAPEX): This method is a further development of the laboratory study stage. To the oil sands of Inner Mongolia,
steam assisted gravity drainage method. In VAPEX, hydro- Cao Zubin, Professor of Liaoning Shihua University, proposed
carbon gas is injected rather than steam. The main advantage water-washing separation technology, and had developed
of the process is: compared with SAGD, VAPEX’s neces- three series of washing separation reagents. The results prove
sary equipments are cheap, simple to handle, and the gas dis- to be very ideal. The dry distillation simulation test that was
solves selectively. It only dissolves in the oil, not in the wa- conducted on Xingjiang oil sands by Langfang Branch of Chi-
ter. So this method can apply to a wide range. na Petroleum Exploration and Development Research Institute
4) Cold heavy oil production technology (CHOP): the cold had also achieved desired gains, which proved that the dry
heavy oil production technolo hat has certain mobility, cold distillation process of Xinjiang oil sand is technically feasible.
heavy oil production wells can greatly improve the wells’ 3.1 Hot water washing method of Oil sands
ability of producing conventional oil. In the Inner Mongolia
oil fields of China, the cold heavy oil production technology Currently, the Canadian oil sands surface separation mainly
is relatively successful. uses hot water / surfactant. Hot alkali and surfactants role in
5) Aquarthermolysis mining technology: In this mining tech- changing the surface wettability of the sand, making the surface
nology, under the conditions of injecting steam, by the help of sand more hydrophilic, achieving the separation of asphalt
of chemical reactions that occurs between heavy oil and absorbing on sand. The separated asphalt oil will then float to the
steam, the viscosity of heavy oil will reduce, thus achieving lye, while the quartz sand will take the lower part, thus achieving
the purpose of lower viscosity underground mining. the objective of separation.
6) Recovery heavy oil by in-stu reducing viscosity techniques: 3.2 Organic solvent extraction of oil sand
In simple thermal effects, thermal cracking and visbreaking Pyrolysis s Organic solvent extraction of oil sands mainly uses
will happen to the heavy oil and its quality will change. the theory that similarities can be solvable easily in each other to
Therefore some people proposed that in the heat treatment, achieve the recycle of oil sands bitumen. Using organic solvent to
injecting hydrogen and other substances that can produce extract the gel bitumen in the sand, and then distill them to
hydrogen element to the underground. In addition to integrat- achieve separation. This method makes use of organic solvents to
ing into the crude oil to make the oil expand, the hydrogen contact with the oil sands, separating the dissolved asphalt from
can enter the tiny pores; when the underlying pressure re-
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International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 3, Issue 4, April-2012 3
ISSN 2229-5518

sand. And the extraction agent can be recycled. Solvent extrac- coking technology is feasible for the processing of oil sands as-
tion method applies to theoretical and laboratory research stage. phalt at present. Residue oil coking technology is the primary
This method is less demanding on the quality of oil sands, it can means for the deep processing of residue oil and for improving
be wet oil sands with high oil content, it can also be sands with the recycle rate of light oil. Currently, the technology is already
little oil, or just dry oil sands. Compared with the hot water wash- very mature, including delayed coking, fluid coking and flexible
ing method, its applicability is broader, and washes oil more effi- coking. Coking process can process a variety of low-quality raw
ciently. material, it is unlimited to materials’ properties.
Disadvantage of this approach and also its largest problem, is
serious environmental pollution. Therefore, this method is rarely 5.CONCLUSION
used in industrial production. Current oil sands development and utilization is just limited to
3.3 Pyrolysis Separation Method of Oil sands a few countries, while Canada is the largest oil sands producer
among them. Although the current cost of oil sands mining and
About the pyrolysis separation technology the main idea of
refining is high, with the development of technology and global
Canidian Alberta’s Oil Sand Technology Administration is trans-
oil prices will remain at a high level of expectations, the econom-
forming the heavy oil sands components to be light components.
ic value of extracting oil from oil sand will increase.
Aostar Taciuk Process referred to as the ATP process, the prin-
The depletion of conventional oil resources, makes the huge
ciple is the use of high temperature of above 250e to pyrolysis.
gap of future energy largely depend on oil sands to make up. The
After the heat treatment, greatly improving the quality of asphalt
world began to realize the importance of oil sands resources, and
improves greatly. Molecular mass becomes smaller, the quantity
start pouring a lot of manpower and material to develop this un-
of gum also reduces. During the heat treatment, the most impor-
conventional energy sources. And, the advances in mining tech-
tant change is the emerging of light oil.
nology will allow the extraction of some oil sands and ores that
In the 1990s, Canada began to apply ATP technology to oil
do not have the economic value before also economically possi-
sands mining. AOSTA and UMATAC cooperated to make efforts
ble.
in the feasibility studies of the oil sands pyrolysis . In the past 17
In the conditions that domestic oil resources is tense, be fa-
years, the technology went through continuous development and
miliar with the state of our oil sands resources and preparing
improvements. The ATP pilot plant in southeast Calgary has
for the exploitation of oil sands resources will make sense to
processed more than 1. 7 @ 104t oil sands, showing the ATP China's energy strategy.
method is an technically effective way for separation and primary
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