• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.40 no.2
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• pp.332-341
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• 2023

The controversy is becoming a hot issue after informed that the water release from Canadian oil sands tailings may initiate within a few years. The surface-mined bitumen extraction in open pit generates wastewater inevitably, which has been conveyed to store in tailings ponds. Currently, the size of tailings pond is getting seriously larger. It is known that tailings treatment is very difficult because the generation of MFT (mature fine tailings) layer is hardly processable. It would be the key process to separate solids and liquid placed within MFT where fine particles are well dispersed. In this paper, the surface-mined bitumen extraction process was first introduced, and followed by presenting the components of tailings as well as the characteristics of MFT. In addition, MFT process options were evaluated. It is expected that successful MFT treatments may be achieved by dewatering process using effective polymer flocculants in near future.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.361-369
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• 2015

Interest of unconventional Oil and Gas, which is produced in a different way, has been increasing due to exhaustion of traditional oil and gas. However production of unconventional Oil and Gas is closely related to its technology level. Accordingly in this research, we can analyze technology level of unconventional Oil and Gas with country/sector/year patent analysis. Through the result of this research, U.S is highest patent application national, patent application in oil sand is increasing. In addition, oil sands-realated patents and shale oil-realated patents applying actively in early 1970's and since the mid-1980's showed a decreasing trend. And patent application in unconventional oil and gas has been increasing due to the rise in the oil price 2000's.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.32-34
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• 2007

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.193-204
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• 1999

Particle crushing is an important and essential factor in interpreting the strength and deformation properties of granular materials in the case of geotechnical problems related to soil crushability. As a recent field problem, the exploitation of offshore oil reserves in tropical and sub-tropical coastal shelf areas has shown that the behaviour of soils containing carbonates is markedly different from predominantly silica sands. In this study, as a first step in making a mechanical framework of granular materials incorporating the soil crushability, single particle fragmentation tests were carried out on four different types of sands in order to clarify the characteristics of the single particle fragmentation strength as related to soil crushability. The single particle strength was considered with the influence of the particle shapes, the amount of mineral components and the particle sizes. The soil particle strength corresponding $D_{50}$ of soil distribution curve has shown the lower value, the more the carbonate component and the more angular the particle shape.

• Clean Technology
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.54-59
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• 2009

In this study, the separation of water/bitumen emulsion was investigated by chemical demulsification method. Motor oils (GS Caltex Deluxe Gold V 7.5W/30, Hyundai gear oil 85W/140) and asphalt (AP-5, KS M 2201, Dongnam Petrochemical MFG. Co.) were used as model oils in the preliminary experiments to effectively remove water from water/bitumen emulsion. The bitumen extracted from Canadian oilsands was used in this study. The water/oil emulsion was not separated without demulsifiers, and Hyundai motor oil showed higher efficiency of water separation at a low concentration of demulsifier compared with that for GS Caltex motor oil. However, as the concentration increased, the efficiency did not rapidly increase compared with that of GS Caltex motor oil. It was highly speculated that the water phase of Hyundai motor oil was not dispersed well compared with that of GS Caltex motor oil because the viscosity of Hyundai motor oil was much higher than that of GS Caltex motor oil. The demulsifier of higher HLB (hydrophilic - lipophilic balance) value had high separation efficiencies in water/oil emulsion. The TWEEN 20 (polyoxyethylene sorbitan monolaurate solution) showed better separation efficiency than other demulsifiers.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.38-45
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• 2008

In this work, we investigated the variation of physical and chemical characteristics of solvent-insolubles and solvent-solubles in Canada's Athabasca oil sands by solvent-insolubles experiments. N-Heptane, n-Hexane, and n-Pentane were tested for solvents and asphaltenes were separated from maltenes by using a modified ASTM D 3279 method. Elemental analysis, boiling point distribution (SIMDIS), molecular weight distribution, heavy metal contents, API gravity, viscosity and SARA fractions were measured for thorough samples. The asphaltenes-removed maltenes contained less sulfur and heavy metal amounts and had lower molecular weight than the original bitumen. N-Pentane solvent could lower sulfur and heavy metal amounts, molecular weight, and viscosity of maltenes compared to the other solvents. Eventually, we confirmed that the obtained experimental data could be used as basic informations of bitumen upgrading processes for the production of SCO (synthetic crude oil).

• Clean Technology
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.140-147
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• 2013

In this study, chemical demulsification and electrical treatment methods were investigated for improving the efficiency of water separation from a water/bitumen emulsion. Two types of motor oils (GS Caltex, Deluxe Gold V 7.5 W/30 and, Hyundai gear oil 85 W/140) were used as model oils in basic experiments to investigate the effects of a demulsifier on water/oil emulsion separation. Chemical demulsifiers showing good water separation performance were then used in asphalt emulsion and bitumen emulsion separation trials. Maleic anhydride and e-caprolactam were shown to be good oil soluble demulsifiers and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate and acrylic acid were effective as water soluble demulsifiers. Based on the results obtained in basic experiments, these four demulsifiers were used in further asphalt emulsion experiments. The oil soluble demulsifiers showed higher water separation efficiencies than the water soluble demulsifiers. To investigate the water separation efficiency using a combined chemical and electrical treatment method, the water/bitumen emulsion was separated with the electrical oil treatment apparatus after a chemical demulsifier had been added to it.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2011

Extra heavy oil reservoirs are distributed over the world but most of them is deposited in the northern part of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, in the area of 5,500 $km^2$, This region, which has been commonly called "the Orinoco Oil Belt", contains estimated 1.3 trillion barrels of original oil-in-place and 250 billion barrels of established reserves. The Venezuela extra heavy oil has an API gravity of less than 10 degree and in situ viscosity of 5,000 cP at reservoir condition. Although the presence of extra heavy oil in the Orinoco Oil Belt has been initially reported in the 1930's, the commercial development using in situ cold production started in the 1990's. The Orinoco heavy oil deposits are clustered into 4 development areas, Boyaco, Junin, Ayachoco, and Carabobo respectively, and they are subdivided into totally 31 production blocks. Nowadays, PDVSA (Petr$\'{o}$leos de Venzuela, S.A.) makes a development of each production block with the international oil companies from more than 20 countries forming a international joint-venture company. The Eastern Venezuela Basin, the Orinoco Oil Belt is included in, is one of the major oil-bearing sedimentary basins in Venezuela and is first formed as a passive margin basin by the Jurassic tectonic plate motion. The major source rock of heavy oil is the late Cretaceous calcareous shale in the central Eastern Venezuela Basin. Hydrocarbon materials migrated an average of 150 km up dip to the southern margin of the basin. During the migration, lighter fractions in the hydrocarbon were removed by biodegradation and the oil changed into heavy and/or extra heavy oil. Miocene Oficina Formation, the main extra heavy oil reservoir, is the unconsolidated sand and shale alternation formed in fluvial-estuarine environment and also has irregularly a large number of the Cenozoic faults induced by basin subsidence and tectonics. Because Oficina Formation has not only complex lithology distribution but also irregular geology structure, geological evolution and characteristics of the reservoirs have to be determined for economical production well design and effective oil recovery. This study introduces geological formation and evolution of the Venezuela extra heavy oil reservoirs and suggest their significant geological characteristics which are (1) thickness and geometry of reservoir pay sands, (2) continuity and thickness of mud beds, (3) geometry of faults, (4) depth and geothermal character of reservoir, (5) in-situ stress field of reservoir, and (6) chemical composition of extra heavy oil. Newly developed exploration techniques, such as 3-D seismic survey and LWD (logging while drilling), can be expected as powerful methods to recognize the geological reservoir characteristics in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.23 no.2
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• pp.53-62
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• 2024

Recently, development of non-traditional energy such as oil sands has been actively conducted in the cold region such as Canada. Frozen soil has different thermal and mechanical characteristics from general soil due to its high organic contents. This study evaluated the impact of organic matter content on the thermal and mechanical behavior of frozen soil samples collected from Alberta, Canada, and Gangwon Province, South Korea. As the organic content increases, the maximum dry unit weight decreases and the optimum moisture content increases in compaction tests. In uniaxial compression tests under frozen conditions, the strength of the frozen specimens increased as the temperature decreased. The strength of Canada soil sample increased with higher organic matter content at low temperatures. However, the strength of frozen soil was not significantly affected by organic matter content due to the complex behavior and unfrozen water content. Thermal conductivity tests showed higher thermal conductivity in frozen conditions compared to unfrozen conditions, due to the higher thermal conductivity of ice compared to water. These findings provide essential data for geotechnical design and construction in large-scale projects such as oil sands development in cold regions. Further research is needed to explore the impact of organic matter content on different types of frozen soils.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.49 no.3
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• pp.225-242
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• 2016

Rock physics serves as a useful tool for seismic reservoir characterization and monitoring by providing quantitative relationships between rock properties and seismic data. Rock physics models can predict effective moduli for reservoirs with different mineral components and pore fluids from well-log data. The distribution of reservoirs and fluids for the entire seismic volume can also be estimated from rock physics models. The first part of this report discusses the Voigt, Reuss, and Hashin-Shtrikman bounds for effective elastic moduli and the Gassmann fluid substitution. The second part reviews various contact models for moderate- to high-porosity sands. In the third part, constant-cement model, known to work well for the sand that gradually loses porosity with deteriorating sorting, was applied to the well-log data from an oil field in the North Sea. Lastly, the rock physics template constructed from the constant-cement model and the results from the prestack inversion of 2D seismic data were combined to predict the lithology and fluid types for the sand reservoir of this oil field.