The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[OakesCS]

OB,
Thx for the kind words. I’m confident that nowlurking is some sort of reservoir or petroleum engineer rather than being a google warrior. But it’s clear from statements like “tar chemistry is simple” that he doesn’t know squat about chemistry. Even though he pointed out, rightfully, that the fundamental problem is viscosity (heat is just a convenient way of lowering that viscosity) he doesn’t seem to know that viscosity is related to the chemistry of the material - not to mention that there is a little bit of thermodynamics involved in the whole heat transfer process (that is sarcasm for those that might interpret 'little bit' too literally). This sort of glossing over fundamentals seems to be fairly common amongst petroleum engineers.

I’m not an engineer so I talked about the thing I know. I’m an expert in aqueous chemistry and thermodynamics and I know more about hydrocarbon chemistry than the vast majority of chemical engineers (I don’t need to name-drop because I have my own publication record).

The original point of Dew’s post was that SAGD costs are higher than expected and I know from my exposure to SAGD steam plant engineers and their reservoir brethren that part of the reason for unexpectedly high costs is because they don’t fully grasp the chemistry of what they’re working with (e.g. ‘tar chemistry is simple’). I have no idea how common this is across the SAGD universe, but I’ve encountered more than 1 batch of engineers and materials scientists from more than 1 company who fall into the pot so it isn’t rare.

If asphaltenes (a common compound in bitumen) are simple then, I’d like to know: 1. Why scientists and chemical engineers publish 100s of papers on them every year yet nobody can define an asphaltene with any greater precision than: it’s pentane or heptane insoluble? and 2. Why are SAGD pilot plants being designed with the principle point being to remove asphaltenes? If the aqueous chemistry is simple or irrelevant, then why are chemical engineers surprised when they find organo-aluminum scales in their heat exchangers (to be fair, I was also surprised) and that 50% of the 10 wt% of dissolved material in their boiler feed tank water is organic salts (derived from interaction of the steam with the bitumen)?

Shutting down and replacing steam plant parts because of plugging or corrosion is not cheap (see links below for numbers). Many chemical and petroleum engineers model hydrocarbons and aqueous liquids and steam as separate systems without any reactive interaction (i.e. exchange of chemical species between the hydrocarbon and H2O-rich liquid and gas). These folks are frequently followers of axioms like “tar chemistry is simple” (in reservoir simulation it’s a practical need to ignore reaction chemistry but many modelers don’t understand the distinction).

A simple scholar.google search of things such as: SAGD AND chemistry or “aquathermolysis” will produce 1000s of recent academic papers and patents dealing with chemical aspects of SAGD. Even the inventor of SAGD was working on (non-reactive) chemical effects on SAGD processes up until 2004 (the year before he died). People don’t do those things if there is not a significant market.


Oil Sands Supply Costs and Development Projects
http://www.ceri.ca/images/stories/CERI_Millington_Global_Energy_Dec_2014_FINAL.pdf
SAGD development costs (slide 20): natural gas cost 2013 $CAD/bbl = 4.3; Fixed capital (initial and sustaining) = 18.9; operating working capital = 0.4; other operating costs (incl. electricity) 14.6. A chunk of the fixed capital and total operating costs deal with chemical treatment of water and bitumen. Unlike bitumen and water chemistry, boilers are pretty simple unless the water is full of stuff other than water. Anybody who took even a cursory look at the steam plant layout would see terms like ‘lime’, ‘emulsion’, … and the many engineering units which performed the operations.

http://www.capp.ca/publications-and-statistics/statistics/statistical-handbook
Statistical Handbook for Canada’s Upstream Petroleum Industry
July 2015

Alberta Oil Sands Bitumen Valuation Methodology
http://www.capp.ca/publications-and-statistics/publications/261786

Note that I do substantiate my points rather than ‘guessing’ or making false attributions. The linked documents might be useful for things other than nailing down production statistics and costs, e.g. they note some substantial advantages to rail transport. Rail transport of heavy oil would not have the same hazards as Bakken oil and a huge amount of money would be saved on not importing diluent.
Regards
Charlie