The acquisition of the Dawson Property and the licensing agreement with Duvernay is an important first step in Petrobank’s development plans for the commercialization of the THAI™ technology on a global basis. The Dawson Property and AMI cover an extensive heavy oil belt with a number of large existing conventional cold heavy oil production operations that typically recover only 6 to 10 percent of the original-oil-in-place. The application of the THAI™ process in these reservoirs has the potential to increase recoveries up to 70 to 80 percent.
Duvernay Petroleum is to use the revolutionary Toe-to-Heel Air Injection (THAI™) system developed at the University of Bath at its site at Peace River in Alberta, Canada.
Unlike conventional light oil, heavy oil is very viscous, like syrup, or even solid in its natural state underground, making it very difficult to extract. But heavy oil reserves that could keep the planet’s oil-dependent economy going for a hundred years lie beneath the surface in many countries, especially in Canada.
Duvernay Petroleum’s heavy oil field in Peace River contains 100 million barrels and this will be a first test of THAI™ on heavy oil, for which THAI™ was originally developed. Duvernay Petroleum has signed a contract with the Canadian firm Petrobank, which owns THAI™, to use the process.
The THAI™ process was first used by Petrobank at its Christina Lake site in the Athabasca Oil Sands, Canada, in June 2006 in a pilot operation which is currently producing 3,000 barrels of oil a day. This was on deposits of bitumen - similar to the surface coating of roads - rather than heavy oil.
Petrobank is applying for permission to expand this to 10,000 barrels a day though there is a potential for this to rise to 100,000.
The 50,000 acre site owned by Petrobank contains an estimated 2.6 billion barrels of bitumen. The Athabasca Oil Sands region is the single largest petroleum deposit on earth, bigger than that of Saudi Arabia.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
TheDude wrote:Cantarell is composed of carbonate breccia, formed from the meteor strike that created the Chicxulub Crater and caused the K-T boundary event. Dunno if THAI would do it much good.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Saskatchewan THAI demonstration test slated
Guntis Moritis
Production Editor
HOUSTON, Nov. 21 -- Petrobank Energy & Resources Ltd. and True Energy Trust, both of Calgary, announced plans to demonstrate the effectiveness of toe-to-heel air injection (THAI) to recover conventional heavy oil from a +10-m thick Mannville channel reservoir in Kerrobert field, Saskatchewan. The initial test will involve two wells.
THAI is an in-situ combustion process, patented by Petrobank, that combines a horizontal producing well with a vertical air-injection well placed at the toe.
Since 2006, Petrobank in its Whitesands project has been testing the THAI process in the Athabasca oil sands of Alberta under a variety of operating conditions.
BC_EE wrote:[...]
Now that Canada has 1.7 trillion barrels of recoverable oil we're going to have to revise an Arab saying:
My grandfather rode a mule,
My father drove an F150 with a four inch lift,
I will fly in a jet,
And my son will have to swim everywhere because the sea levels rose.
(And, I'm a Lumberjack and I'm o.k.)
I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere in this thread, but think about what this means if the Oil Sands have 1.7 trillion economically recoverable barrels? I know there will be two outcomes:
1. The Americans will start liking us again.
2. A second Tim Horton's will open up in Ft. Mac
JonFreise wrote:[...]
But if EROI is really 10:1 or better for THAI then all climate scientists should be using much larger supplies of oil than have been discussed here. Because at 10:1 they are very likely to be exploited over the next 200 years.
Hubbert Linearizations may not account for these resources correctly. We may end up with a very fat tail.
[...]
RalphW wrote:Being deeply concerned about CO2 emissions, I am rather sad to say that this looks economically promising. If the EROEI (excluding naptha) is greater than 10:1 that means the total CO2 emissions will not be significantly greater than those from, say, conventional heavy oil, and probably less than the same useful energy from a standard coal fired power station.
[...]
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Petrobank is the creator of the Toe to Heel Air Injection, or THAI, method of drawing bitumen out of the ground using no water and minimal natural gas. The THAI process uses air to ignite a flame underground, which softens the gooey bitumen enough for it to flow to the surface.
An assessment by independent consulting firm McDaniel and Associates concluded last week that the THAI process works at Petrobank's Conklin heavy oil project in Alberta.
McDaniel's transition report says a best estimate of bitumen in place at Petrobank's Whitesands oil sands leases is 1.8 billion barrels if THAI is used. That's 17 per cent better than if the more common steam-assisted gravity drainage, or SAGD, technique were used.
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