“This brings our total oil sands land Water use and handling is another potential application in other oil sands
holdings to 60 sections or 38,400 acres,” challenge THAI is designed to manage. In and heavy oil reservoirs—it could access
the company says. “An updated resource the SAGD process, Bloomer says operators lower quality, thinner and deeper targets
evaluation incorporating these new lands generally have to deal with about seven than current steam-based processes.
is under way and is expected to add barrels of water for every barrel of bitumen
significantly to our current in-place produced—three for steam injection and “[ THAI] is very robust and it can deal with a
bitumen resource.” four that come back from the reservoir with lot of reservoir heterogeneity, whereas
production. In the design of the THAI pilot, steam has trouble,” he explains. “We feel we
Eleven of the new sections are contiguous each barrel of bitumen produced has about can use this technology in a lot of heavy oil
with the existing land, while the other four one-tenth of a barrel of produced water reservoirs globally, and that’s what we
are described as “in close proximity.” that needs to be handled. This water is want to do.”
Bloomer says although Whitesands is injected into deep aquifers rather than
currently in pilot phase, a substantial processed for steam injection, again
project could eventually occur. “We could reducing energy requirements.
have a 100,000-barrel-per-day project, and
we can always use SAGD if it doesn’t work.” “We don’t have that [water handling]
aspect of it,” Bloomer says.
Many in the industry are eager for the
results of the THAI pilot, as it could
potentially change the way producers look
at in situ production.
The project proponents seem quite “[ THAI] is promising and I hope we can
confident THAI will work, and will prove to Because the process uses less energy, it is see some progress in that area because it
have a number of benefits over the also expected to result in lower greenhouse will open a lot of doors for us,” says Soheil
popular methods employing steam. gas emissions than other in situ methods Asgarpour, oil sands development
Because there is no need to generate already in use. As well, partial upgrading in business unit leader with the Alberta
steam after the initial reservoir preheat, the reservoir means the reduction or Department of Energy.
the requirements for costly natural gas are elimination of costly diluent for
greatly reduced. As well, the company transportation. Whitesands says the product Bloomer says the way forward with
plans to use the geothermal heat coming will be compatible with a wide range of heavy oil around the world will not be
to the surface to generate electricity, refineries, which is currently a challenge for steam, and the THAI pilot will help
further reducing outside energy producers of un-upgraded bitumen. prove it.
requirements. In SAGD operations, this
heat is often used to generate more
steam.
Bloomer says another benefit of a
successful THAI project would be its
“Combustion is the way of the future. It’s
showtime.” ■
