• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.7 no.6
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• pp.350-361
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• 2008

Canada's oil sands contain one of the largest reserves of oil in the world. According to recent estimates, there are nearly 180 billion barrels of oil in the Canadian oil sands trapped in a complex mixture of sand, water and clay. More than 40 companies have been currently operating or developing oil sands facilities since the first production in 1967. The process of oil sands upgrading is similar with down stream refinery, but the corrosion environment in upgrading refinery is often more severe than in the refinery because of high chlorides, mineral contents, carbonic acid, heavy viscosity and fouling, higher naphthenic acid [$NA-R(CH_{2})nCOOH$], and greater sulfur contents. Naphthenic acid corrosion (NAC) which is one of the most critical corrosion issues in up & downstream refinery plants was observed for the first time in 1920's in refinery distillation processes of Rumania, Azerbaizan (Baku), Venezuela, and California. As a first API report, the 11th annual meeting stated sources and mechanism of NAC in early 1930's. API has been developing the risk base standards, such as API RP580, 571, and Publication 581 which are based on the worst NAC damage in the world since 2000. Nevertheless not only the NAC phenomena and control in Canadian sands oil process are not much widely known but also there are still no engineering guidances for the Canadian sands oil in API standards. This paper will give NAC phenomina and materials selection guidance against NA environment in Canadian oil sands upgrading processes.

• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

As conventional oil and gas reservoirs become depleted, interests for oil sands has rapidly increased in the last decade. Oil sands are mixture of bitumen, water, and host sediments of sand and clay. Most oil sand is unconsolidated sand that is held together by bitumen. Bitumen has hydrocarbon in situ viscosity of >10,000 centipoises (cP) at reservoir condition and has API gravity between $8-14^{\circ}$. The largest oil sand deposits are in Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada. The reverves are approximated at 1.7 trillion barrels of initial oil-in-place and 173 billion barrels of remaining established reserves. Alberta has a number of oil sands deposits which are grouped into three oil sand development areas - the Athabasca, Cold Lake, and Peace River, with the largest current bitumen production from Athabasca. Principal oil sands deposits consist of the McMurray Fm and Wabiskaw Mbr in Athabasca area, the Gething and Bluesky formations in Peace River area, and relatively thin multi-reservoir deposits of McMurray, Clearwater, and Grand Rapid formations in Cold Lake area. The reservoir sediments were deposited in the foreland basin (Western Canada Sedimentary Basin) formed by collision between the Pacific and North America plates and the subsequent thrusting movements in the Mesozoic. The deposits are underlain by basement rocks of Paleozoic carbonates with highly variable topography. The oil sands deposits were formed during the Early Cretaceous transgression which occurred along the Cretaceous Interior Seaway in North America. The oil-sands-hosting McMurray and Wabiskaw deposits in the Athabasca area consist of the lower fluvial and the upper estuarine-offshore sediments, reflecting the broad and overall transgression. The deposits are characterized by facies heterogeneity of channelized reservoir sands and non-reservoir muds. Main reservoir bodies of the McMurray Formation are fluvial and estuarine channel-point bar complexes which are interbedded with fine-grained deposits formed in floodplain, tidal flat, and estuarine bay. The Wabiskaw deposits (basal member of the Clearwater Formation) commonly comprise sheet-shaped offshore muds and sands, but occasionally show deep-incision into the McMurray deposits, forming channelized reservoir sand bodies of oil sands. In Canada, bitumen of oil sands deposits is produced by surface mining or in-situ thermal recovery processes. Bitumen sands recovered by surface mining are changed into synthetic crude oil through extraction and upgrading processes. On the other hand, bitumen produced by in-situ thermal recovery is transported to refinery only through bitumen blending process. The in-situ thermal recovery technology is represented by Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage and Cyclic Steam Stimulation. These technologies are based on steam injection into bitumen sand reservoirs for increase in reservoir in-situ temperature and in bitumen mobility. In oil sands reservoirs, efficiency for steam propagation is controlled mainly by reservoir geology. Accordingly, understanding of geological factors and characteristics of oil sands reservoir deposits is prerequisite for well-designed development planning and effective bitumen production. As significant geological factors and characteristics in oil sands reservoir deposits, this study suggests (1) pay of bitumen sands and connectivity, (2) bitumen content and saturation, (3) geologic structure, (4) distribution of mud baffles and plugs, (5) thickness and lateral continuity of mud interbeds, (6) distribution of water-saturated sands, (7) distribution of gas-saturated sands, (8) direction of lateral accretion of point bar, (9) distribution of diagenetic layers and nodules, and (10) texture and fabric change within reservoir sand body.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.80-87
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• 2010

This study was conducted to develop a reservoir modelling workflow to reproduce the heterogeneous distribution of effective permeability that impacts on the performance of SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage), the in-situ bitumen recovery technique in the Athabasca Oil Sands. Lithologic facies distribution is the main cause of the heterogeneity in bitumen reservoirs in the study area. The target formation consists of sand with mudstone facies in a fluvial-to-estuary channel system, where the mudstone interrupts fluid flow and reduces effective permeability. In this study, the lithologic facies is classified into three classes having different characteristics of effective permeability, depending on the shapes of mudstones. The reservoir modelling workflow of this study consists of two main modules; facies modelling and permeability modelling. The facies modelling provides an identification of the three lithologic facies, using a stochastic approach, which mainly control the effective permeability. The permeability modelling populates mudstone volume fraction first, then transforms it into effective permeability. A series of flow simulations applied to mini-models of the lithologic facies obtains the transformation functions of the mudstone volume fraction into the effective permeability. Seismic data contribute to the facies modelling via providing prior probability of facies, which is incorporated in the facies models by geostatistical techniques. In particular, this study employs a probabilistic neural network utilising multiple seismic attributes in facies prediction that improves the prior probability of facies. The result of using the improved prior probability in facies modelling is compared to the conventional method using a single seismic attribute to demonstrate the improvement in the facies discrimination. Using P-wave velocity in combination with density in the multiple seismic attributes is the essence of the improved facies discrimination. This paper also discusses sand matrix porosity that makes P-wave velocity differ between the different facies in the study area, where the sand matrix porosity is uniquely evaluated using log-derived porosity, P-wave velocity and photographically-predicted mudstone volume.

• 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.