Oilsands Review - September 2006

R&D

PHOTO: Joey Podlubny

MSAR is being tested at the Joslyn site, formerly owned by Deer Creek Energy.

natural gas. The board anticipates that today’s oilsands production of about 1.1 million barrels per day will triple to just over 3 million barrels per day by 2015—with accompanying natural gas requirements of approximately 2.1 billion cubic feet per day. This would account for about 12. 5 per cent of the country’s total daily current production of natural gas. Canada’s natural gas production is said to have peaked— somewhat short of the 18-billion- cubic-feet-per-day mark—in 2001.

SAGD production is perhaps even more vulnerable to fuel-price spikes than most oilsands mining operations. The main operating cost for SAGD projects is

the natural gas that fuels the steam generators. The steam-to-oil ratio (SOR), which measures the volume of steam required to extract the bitumen, is the key measure of a thermal project’s efficiency—and perhaps its profitability. According to Schlumberger, typical SOR values for SAGD range from two to five, while values for cyclic steam stimulation are in the three-to-eight range. “The lower the SOR, the more efficiently the steam is utilized and the lower the fuel costs,” the company says.

The SAGD pilot at Total E&P Canada’s Joslyn Creek facility was the first oilsands project to use MSAR. Joslyn is set to start commercial production of its second phase— 10,000 barrels per day from 18 pairs of horizontal wells—sometime in September. Although there are currently no firm plans to switch from natural gas to MSAR on the commercial operation, Matt Cartwright, Total’s Calgary-based vice-president of planning and technology, sounds off on a positive note.

“We were very encouraged by the results of the pilot and feel it was a success. There was no killing factor. The [MSAR] technology worked,” he says.

One of the aims of the recently completed MSAR pilot was to assess the technology’s feasibility using a once-through steam generator, which involves a boiler that can accommodate relatively unclean water, says Cartwright. Emissions quality was another key factor the pilot aimed to assess.

Initially, says Cartwright, there were some concerns about temperature and pumping quality, but “we got around these issues. Flame quality and carbon burnout were both very good.”

Results on the emissions front also look promising.

“We did a stack analysis for emissions,” says Cartwright. “At current prices, MSAR looks economically feasible, with emissions control to [Alberta Energy and Utilities Board] standards. To adopt this technology, though, you have to bet that gas prices will stay high.”