Description |
The Focus of this Review: This review has focused on the identification of emerging and developing technologies that can, when fully developed, either be applied directly to upgrade bitumen and very heavy crudes, or are integral to new approaches to upgrading. Although very heavy crudes do not have the same reserve potential as the oil sands, and are produced more conventionally, they are included in this report as they might also gain from upgrading to lighter crudes using similar upgrading technology. For oil sands bitumen, the review of technologies contributing to upgrading included parallel consideration of newer recovery technology being investigated that might include a measure of upgrading. For all upgraded, synthetic products, downstream refining market needs that might impose new quality requirements are also reviewed. In addition, the survey considered upgrader integration technologies, and emerging sciences or enabling technologies that might help to transform the future science of upgrading processes. So the range of technologies considered was significantly wider than the conventional concept of upgrading. The study identified basic and applied research at the pre-competitive stage of development which is ideally suited to scientific investigation in universities and government funded labs. This is an area of research over which governments and industry jointly have planning and management control. This is typically 10-25 % of all R&D funding. Extensions of this platform of underlying research into development towards commercial operations are also referenced, but are not normally suited to lab based study. These development areas do, however, need to be accounted for, and in some cases involve joint industry and government funding. The continued expansion of oil sands and very heavy crude production and upgrading will need to address one of the most pressing external challenges; significantly reduce or eliminate reliance on natural gas for energy, power and hydrogen generation. Proposed alternatives to natural gas are not confined to internally generated residues, but this approach can have some important and economically attractive side benefits in the main upgrading process selection. |