• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.213-224
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• 2016

Non-conventional resource and alternative energy were researched for predicting oil peak. In this study, one of many non-conventional resources, specifically oil-sands, was investigated due to the increasing interest of oil-sands plant modularization in permaforst areas for reducing the construction periods through modular transportation while limiting local construction workers. Hence, tehcnological trends were analyzed for oil-sand plant modularization. Data used were between 1994 and 2015 for patent analysis while targets included Korea, US, Japan, Europe and Canada. Technology classification system consisted of mining, steam assisted gravity drainage(SAGD), separation/upgrading/tailors ponds, module design/packaging, module transportation and material/maintenance. Result of patent analysis, patent application accounts 89% in US and Canada. The main competitive companies were Shell, Suncor and Exxon-mobil. Unlike other oil developments, oil-sands have a long-term stable production characteristic, hence, it is important to ensure the competitiveness of oil-sands for obtaining a patent in the long run.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.130-138
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• 2017

The connector of the complex behavior is to connect the individual piles of the pile to the lower foundation of the oil sand plant where the floating foundation is used. In this study, to verify the shape of a connector of the complex behavior for applying the advantages of existing group pile and piled raft foundation to an oil sand plant, a scaled model was constructed to measure the behavior of the load.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.451-460
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• 2019

In this study, a complex behavior connector is proposed to overcome the problems that may occur when small pile pipe and micro pile is used as a friction pile concept in the lower foundation of an oil sand plant where a piloti foundation is used. The individual settlement and heaving of piles were connected in one group to allow the composite behavior. This study performed to analyze the load carrying capacity to identify a complex behavior. In addition, the shape of the composite behavior connector was examined to apply the advantages of pile-group and piled raft foundations to oil sand plants. A scale model was constructed to measure the behavior of the load. The stability and weakness of the device were selected to determine the shape of the connector using the scale model testing.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.10-17
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• 2013

Heavy oil residue upgrading process was being used in conventional refinery process. Recently, as the importance of non conventional energy development is growing up, the commercial projects of heavy oil upgrading are getting more active than before. For having competitive business model in the resource competition, non conventional energy development should be considered as an important business strategy. In developing oil sands, extra heavy oil, and shale gas, canadian oil sands and extra heavy oil have great importance in substitution of conventional oil consumption. In oil sands development, the bitumen, which is extracted from oil sands, has great value after upgrading or refining process. Similar process is being used current conventional refinery process. The bitumen is highly viscous hydrocarbon. This bitumen includes impurities which can not be treated in conventional refinery process. As this reason, specified process is needed in bitumen or extra heavy oil upgrading process. Moreover, there will be additional specified facilities in the process of production, transportation and marketing. In oil sands, there are various kinds of commercial upgrading process. Extraction, dilution, coking and cracking method were being used commercially.

• Tribology and Lubricants
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.31-35
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• 2017

Recently, international attention has been focused on the development of non-traditional energy resources such as shale gas and oil sands, due to the steep increase in the demand for natural resources. The materials incorporated in an oil gas plant module experience extreme environments, and are prone to various problem such as fracture, corrosion and abrasion due to low-temperature brittleness. In order to improve the plant life, it is necessary to perform characteristics study and performance evaluation of the materials. In particular, this paper explains the main set of materials which are most frequently used in oil sands plant project. In order to investigate wear characteristics, the authors carried out abrasive wear tests of TP 316, stainless steel and SS 400, structural rolled steel. For the analysis of the abrasive wear resistance of an oil sands plant, the authors carried out the test according to ASTM G 105 "Standard Test Method for Conducting Wet Sand/Rubber Wheel Abrasion Test" standard guidelines. The authors have derived the results from the data associated with the loss of mass with respect to wear rate. During the test, for a given wear length for 10,000 revolutions, the rotational speed and applied force of the rubber wheel were varied.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.211-217
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• 2019

Oil extraction from oil sands, a non-traditional crude oil resource, is attracting attention as the oil price fluctuates due to recent economical and political issues. Many oil sands sites are mainly located in the polar regions. For plant construction to extract crude oil from oil sands in harsh environment of the polar regions, fast and simple installation of plant foundation is necessary. However, typically-used conventional foundations such as drilled shafts and driven piles are not suitable to construct under cold temperature and organic surface layers. In this study, helical piles enabling rapid and simple constructions using small rotary equipment without driving or excavation was considered. The helical pile consists of steel shaft and several helices attached to the steel shaft; therefore, the behavior of the helical pile depends on the number and shape of the helices. The effect of the helices' configuration (number and diameter of helices) on helical pile behavior was analyzed based on the numerical analysis results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Geothermal and Hydrothermal Energy
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.12-21
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• 2022

Steam assisted gravity drainage(SAGD) is a process that drills well in the underground oil sands layer, injects hightemperature steam, lowers the viscosity of buried bitumen, and recovers it to the ground. Recently, direct contact steam generator(DCSG) is being developed to maximize steam efficiency for SAGD process. The DCSG requires high technology to achieve pressurized combustion and steam generation in accordance with underground pressurized conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a combustion technology that can control the heat load and exhaust gas composition. In this study, process analysis of high-pressurized DCSG was conducted to apply oxygen enrichment technology in which nitrogen of the air was partially removed for increasing steam production and reducing fuel consumption. As the process analysis conditions, methane as the fuel and normal air or oxygen enriched air as the oxidizing agent were applied to high-pressurized DCSG process model. A simple combustion reaction program was used to calculate the property variations for combustion temperature, steam ratio and residual heat in exhaust gas. As a major results, the steam production efficiency of DCSG using the pure oxygen was about 6% higher than that of the normal air due to the reducing nitrogen in the air. The results of this study will be used as operating data to test the demonstration device.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.37-42
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• 2016

The demand for wireless technology in plant structure has recently been increasing due to several advantages such as installation cost reduction, easy placement, easy extension and aesthetic benefits. Among the many wireless technologies, ZigBee is one of the most useful for plant structure; a wireless plant networking system can be configured using ZigBee alone. This research proposes a ZigBee to use for extreme cold region and thereby enable integration of wired and wireless plant monitoring systems. In this study, in order to assess the performance of ZigBee measured data by thermocouple were examined based on the results from laboratory tests between existing ZigBee and developed ZigBee. From the experiment results, performance of developed ZigBee in harsh environment can be increased well.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.19-24
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• 2016

Oil sands are a mixture of sand, clay, and a high-viscosity petroleum called bitumen. Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is the most viable and environmentally safe recovery technology for extracting bitumen. It extracts the viscosity-lowered bitumen by high pressure, high temperature steam injected into the bitumen reservoir. The steam is produced at the Central Processing Facility (CPF). Typically, more than 90% of the energy consumed in producing bitumen are used to generate the steam. Fuels are employed in the process, which cause economic and environmental problems. This paper explores the retrofit of heat exchanger network to reduce the usage of hot and cold utilities. The hot and cold utilities are reduced respectively 6% and 37.3% which in turn resulted in 5.3% saving of total annual cost by improving the existing heat exchanger network of the CPF.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.275-291
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• 2023

Global warming has made the polar regions more accessible, leading to increased demand for the construction of new resource-development plants in oil-rich permafrost regions. The selection of locations of resource-development plants in permafrost regions should consider the surface displacement resulting from thawing and freezing of the active layer of permafrost. However, few studies have considered surface displacement in the selection of optimal locations of resource-development plants in permafrost region. In this study, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) analysis using a range of geospatial information variables was performed to select optimal locations for the construction of oil-sands development plants in the permafrost region of southern Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, including consideration of surface displacement. The surface displacement velocity was estimated by applying the Small BAseline Subset Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar technique to time-series Advanced Land Observing Satellite Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar images acquired from February 2007 to March 2011. ERA5 reanalysis data were used to generate geospatial data for air temperature, surface temperature, and soil temperature averaged for the period 2000~2010. Geospatial data for roads and railways provided by Statistics Canada and land cover maps distributed by the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation were also used in the AHP analysis. The suitability of sites analyzed using land cover, surface displacement, and road accessibility as the three most important geospatial factors was validated using the locations of oil-sand plants built since 2010. The sensitivity of surface displacement to the determination of location suitability was found to be very high. We confirm that surface displacement should be considered in the selection of optimal locations for the construction of new resource-development plants in permafrost regions.