R&D
short combustion time and “ 99.99-plus
per cent carbon burnout.” According to
Quadrise presentations at conferences
and investment symposiums held in
Calgary earlier this year, the advantages
stem from improved manufacturing
processes and better surfactant chemistry.
John Wearing, vice-president of
operations at Quadrise, and Ross
Lennox, the company’s vice-president of
technology, point to other advantages
for MSAR in the oilsands environment.
For one thing, transport and capital
costs for the producer are eliminated.
“We make MSAR and operate the
manufacturing facility on site,” Lennox
says. Wearing adds that instead of a
capital cost, “we charge the producer a
manufacturing fee for the service we
provide.”
The scalability of the MSAR technology is another advantage that was absent
from earlier emulsion fuel manufacturing. Wearing says the Venezuelan
Orimulsion production facility was on a
large scale—about 150,000 barrels per
day or more—and geared for the
region’s specific bitumen type. The MSAR
manufacturing model can be sized for
production on site at 1,500, 3,000, or
6,000 barrels per day.
“We tell producers that we will need
15 to 18 per cent of production for
fuel,” says Wearing. Thus, a 6,000-bar-
rel-per-day MSAR system would fuel
SAGD production in the range of 34,000
to 40,000 barrels per day. For bigger
SAGD facilities, multiple MSAR production units could be used.
MSAR’s scalability also provides the
potential for much lower capital costs for
SAGD operations that could benefit from
an alternative fuel to natural gas but
don’t have a $4-billion budget for a large-scale integrated SAGD, upgrader, and
gasification operation like the Opti/Nexen
Long Lake project.
Certainly, the reasons for finding a fuel
alternative to natural gas in SAGD—and
mining operations, for that matter—
appear compelling. A sustained rise in
natural gas prices could add to the
urgency. At present, Canada produces
about 17 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas. According to a report from the
National Energy Board released in June
this year, the oilsands industry currently
uses about 700,000 cubic feet per day of
