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looking down the list of topic , I could not see any mention of this geological ressource

http://www.oilfieldwiki.com/wiki/Orinoco_Belt

the Orinoco belt is reported as being the largest deposit of fossile Hydrocarbon discovered so far
the recoverable quantities are stagering , yet nothing much is happening

Everybody agree the stuff is hateful , yet when has it stopped anyone before
the politics also are confused but the US import a far amount of conventional from there already

It puzzle me , is it economics ?

sparky wrote:.
looking down the list of topic , I could not see any mention of this geological ressource

http://www.oilfieldwiki.com/wiki/Orinoco_Belt

the Orinoco belt is reported as being the largest deposit of fossile Hydrocarbon discovered so far
the recoverable quantities are stagering , yet nothing much is happening

Everybody agree the stuff is hateful , yet when has it stopped anyone before
the politics also are confused but the US import a far amount of conventional from there already

It puzzle me , is it economics ?

Venezuela had a development program. One of the products was called Orimulsion, which could be burned in large diesel engines such as those used in ships. There was political disruption a few years ago due to nationalization (http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/2245).

Out of sight, tankers, merchant ships burn something called bunker 'C' (the 'c' is for cancer?)

I believe world shipping contributes far greater pollution than do oil sands.

http://www.etc-cte.ec.gc.ca/databases/o ... el_oil.pdf

sparky wrote:.
looking down the list of topic , I could not see any mention of this geological ressource

http://www.oilfieldwiki.com/wiki/Orinoco_Belt

the Orinoco belt is reported as being the largest deposit of fossile Hydrocarbon discovered so far
the recoverable quantities are stagering , yet nothing much is happening

Everybody agree the stuff is hateful , yet when has it stopped anyone before
the politics also are confused but the US import a far amount of conventional from there already

It puzzle me , is it economics ?

I rooted around at the site, and it has been talked about before. It isn't economics, a quick read through makes it seem more like geopolitical issues.

news-from-venezuela-s-orinoco-oil-belt-t56392.html

I'll assume the Vz oil sands can be developed economically just as the Canadian oil sands. Watching from afar Vz has a long history of politics getting in the way of economic development. Even their more conventional reservoirs suffered underdevelopment for similar reasons. If the Vz govt ever morphed into a friendlier environment for Big Oil their oil sands will be developed. China has been doing their share by building refineries keyed specifically to the Vz crap but I think even they aren't having an easy time of it.

Resources aren't reserves aren't a tiger in yer tank

X-Heavy is the black line on this Laharrere predict-o-gram showing a ultimate of 500Gb and max flow somewhere in the second half of the century at maybe 15Mb/d.

Bit. and X-Heavy is more strip mining and manufacturing than drilling into a Bubblin' Crude - after 50 years of Canada supporting their tar sands they are making about 3Mb/d. So even if the ultimate is twice or 3 time 500Gb it is no replacement for crude because it is more like building widgets (or fracking shale) than drilling a bunch of wells that go on giving for 50 years.

true Pops. But like that line about the one-eyed man being the king in the land of the blind: owning a couple of billion bbls of burnable crap makes you king in the land of the crapless.

Dissident wrote:

Venezuela had a development program. One of the products was called Orimulsion, which could be burned in large diesel engines such as those used in ships. There was political disruption a few years ago due to nationalization.

Orimulsion was basically 70% bitumen and 30% water. It could not be burned in diesel engines. It was basically boiler fuel. Most large ships are powered by steam turbines however and it made a great fuel for them.

I really don't know why it was discontinued but I suppose it was for two reasons. First there were always problems when dealing with the Venezuelan government. (BP was a partner with Petrobras in the venture.) And second it was basically a substitute for coal in power plants and sold for a lot less than crude oil.

But the Venezuelan bitumen is very difficult and and expensive to produce, owing to its very high viscosity. (It's basically tar.) And add to that the problems with dealing with the Venezuelan government causes all international oil companies to shy away. They fear getting nationalized and their assets seized for pennies on the dollar. Venezuela has done that in the past and there is no guarantee they won't do it again.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orimulsion

Raw bitumen has an extremely high viscosity and specific gravity between 8 to 10 API gravity, at ambient temperatures and is unsuitable for direct use in conventional power stations. Orimulsion is made by mixing the bitumen with about 30% fresh water and a small amount of surfactant. The result behaves similarly to fuel oil. An alcohol-based surfactant recently replaced the original phenol-based version; improving the transport properties of the fuel and eliminating the health concerns associated with the phenol group of surfactants.

http://dice-net.org/development/engines-for-dice.html

Wärtsilä has extensive experience with firing Orimulsion into medium-speed engines (including a 40 MW demonstration power plant at Vaasa and a 150 MW power plant in Guatemala). Wärtsilä expect that MRC will need similar adaptations.

Here is the product brochure for these low RPM massive diesel engines:

http://cleantech.cnss.no/wp-content/upl ... Review.pdf

Note the type of fuels that these engines are designed for (page 10). Orimulsion can be used directly as a fuel.

My mistake. I suppose anything that can burn raw crude can also burn watered down bitumen.

Here's an interesting story about the "promise" of orimulsion: Back in 2006 New Brunswick Liberal leader Shawn Graham is promising to call a public inquiry into NB Power's botched deal to supply cheap Venezuelan fuel to a Saint John power plant. In 2002, the power company spent hundreds of millions renovating the Colson Cove power plant to burn Venezuelan orimulsion fuel. The plant had previously burned bunker C oil. When the Venezuelan government-owned fuel company refused to sell the relatively inexpensivefuelto New Brunswick, NB Power launched a $2 billion lawsuit, claiming it had a signed supply contract. The fuel company disagreed, and the dispute is now making its way through the courts in New York. Graham says NB Power lost $2.2 billion on the deal and believes taxpayers deserve an explanation. "We're committed today to bring forward the measures to protect New Brunswick ratepayers. It was this government that created the orimulsion fiasco, the most costly fiasco in our province's history."

This is what I found on the current status of orimulsion: Orimulsion is currently used as a commercial boiler fuel in power plants worldwide (e.g., Canada, Japan, Lithuania, Italy and China). Use of fuel used to be much wider and demand was at the skyrocketing increase stage. However, when a major strike hit PDVSA, most of the engineers were fired as punishment. As a result, the government is trying to "Wind Down" the Orimulsion program. The one exception is the sales of Orimulsion to China. The Venezuelan government has close ties to China, as it has with Cuba. The result is that China is still supplied with Orimulsion, while the rest of the world has either had their supplies terminated, or are still experiencing the "Wind Down" phase. Orimulsion still has excellent potential for domestic consumption. Another reason given by current PDVSA management is that with rising crude oil prices, it has been found that mixing or diluting Orinoco bitumen (extra-heavy oil) with a lighter crude oil can make this blend more profitable as a crude oil on the world market than by selling it as Orimulsion. An example of this is the popular Merey blend (Orinoco bitumen and Mesa crude oil). ConocoPhillips along with PDVSA operate the Merey Sweeny 58,000-barrel-per-day (9,200 m3/d) (bpd) delayed coker, vacuum tower and related facilities at ConocoPhillips' refinery in Sweeny, Texas, U.S.A. for processing and upgrading heavy sour Merey crude oil.

ROCKMAN wrote:true Pops. But like that line about the one-eyed man being the king in the land of the blind: owning a couple of billion bbls of burnable crap makes you king in the land of the crapless.

Yep, I read somewhere that Neanderthal-era stone tools have been recovered that have traces of Bitumen on them; who says the supply isn't unlimited?

LOL

Pops - But now that you mention it imagine if a N cave dweller has found a rich deposit of bitumen and figured how to make use of it. He Mohr have been considered the Einstein of the clan and gotten all the hot chicks. LOL.

But seriously: think about what you could do with it if the only other tools you had were rocks ands sticks.

ROCKMAN wrote:Pops - But now that you mention it imagine if a N cave dweller has found a rich deposit of bitumen and figured how to make use of it. He Mohr have been considered the Einstein of the clan and gotten all the hot chicks. LOL.

But seriously: think about what you could do with it if the only other tools you had were rocks ands sticks.

Off the top of my head, glue between the stone and wood to reinforce the bindings holding them together, fire, waterproofing...

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I've been operating fuel systems using Bunker oil ,
it was to feed the torch in a cement plant ,thirty feet long with a two inch nozzle !!
basically burning limestone just require a lot of crappy fuel ,
we had steam jacket to keep the stuff flowing , cold , it was just tar
a point to note , there was no environmental concern in this country ,
the sulfur and metal content was off the charts ,
apparently ,it poison the catalytic crackers and any decent refiner shudder at the though of having to deal with it

P.S. I known the neanderthal to fasten their stone heads used pitch (a natural by product of wood calcination)
If they had found a natural tar source they were smart enough to have used it too
plenty of hunter society used natural crude oil , including the Seneca Indians it's mostly for skin diseases and wounds
Seneca oil got its name from that fact , it started as a medicine
same with the Peichbronn company in Alsace

From memory, Vz used Orimulsion to by pass limitation on crude oil production quotas from OPEC. Once the Vz could not meet their oil quota from conventional crude, either due to depletion, sacking of workers, increase in quotas due to OPEC not keeping up to world demand. Orimulsion was no longer deemed boiler fuel, but was now actual crude oil.
As they say the pen is greater than sword, i mean actual oil production figures.
Nearly as good as SA's paper barrels.

Pusher - I had forgotten that angle. Just found this: "The extra-heavy crude oil of the Orinoco Belt was originally sold as a boiler fuel known as Orimulsion and classified in the same category as coal, not oil, which is far cheaper than oil and does not count towards the oil production quotas set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). At the time, in the 1990’s, Venezuela was already producing over its OPEC quota and so did not want Orimulsion to be counted towards that quota."

I gather now that quotas are no longer relevant the goal is to make this crap more oil-like. From what I gather this would take many $billions invested in upgrader but given the current politics it's difficult for investors, including China, to take that leap of faith. But if the can make the Canadian oil sands boom thanks to $100/bbl oil I suspect the Vz resources will have a big future if they could convince the world investments there would be safe. In a PO world it's difficult to imagine tens of billions of bbls of hydrocarbons will be permanently abandoned. Just as the assumption that coal has no future in this same world is very short sighted IMHO despite the AGW implication.