PTAC Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada
March 31, 2015
Executive Summary
The purpose of the Project is to outline industry needs for partial and/or field upgrading in the oil sands sector. Upgrading is the process of physical and chemical unit operations that converts raw
bitumen (extra heavy crude oil) to Synthetic Crude Oil (SCO) which has properties analogous to conventional crude oil. Partial upgrading generally refers to the application of only a subset of such physical and chemical operations to achieve only partial improvement in the upgrading of bitumen to SCO. It is generally intended that partial upgrading takes place in the field near the wellhead for the purpose of achieving the viscosity reduction required for shipment by pipeline.
The Project is an assessment of industry needs and will not delve into specific solutions or technology development opportunities. As such, the purpose of this study is to define challenges and to remain “technology agnostic” with respect to potential solutions. The outcome will be market, performance and cost criteria that would need to be met by any new technology for it to be successful in the application. This will inform the identification and selection of technologies that could be developed and supported by industry and government consortium investments.