Innovation Anthology #658:
In the early days of oil sands production,
bitumen was mixed with very hot water to separate the oil from the sand.
This took place in long rotating machines called tumblers.
But then Syncrude scientists developed a cheaper, more energy efficient technology.
Glen Rovang is Syncrude’s head of research .
GLEN ROVANG: And so we came up with what we call today “hydro transport”. And that is essentially closer to the mining operation, mixing the oil sand with water, and then using that through pipelines to transport it to the plant. Therefore less conveyors and no large tumbler devices
So that suite of technologies is now in use by all of the surface mining operations in the region. We also for the Aurora operation which is about 35 kilometers north of Mildred ,that’s were we put in place the low energy extraction technology which takes hydro transport to the next level .
Glen Rovang says Syncrude has now developed a new form of hydro transport. It’s called natural froth lubricity pipelining. This facilitates mining at remote sites without the need to duplicate infrastructure.
Thanks today to SYNCRUDE
LEARN MORE AT INNOVATIONANTHOLOGY.COM
I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Guest
,
, , , ,
Sponsor
Syncrude
Program Date: 2015-01-15