While mining was the first technology developed for extracting bitumen out of the oil sands, it was evident that billions of barrels of oil reserves were far too deep to be mined. Many early pioneers envisioned a less disruptive, less labour-intensive method of recovering bitumen directly from the ground, more like conventional oil, without having to excavate the entire deposit.
Cyclic Steam Stimulation (CSS) was the first in-situ technology to be commercialized in the Cold Lake region. However, the technology wasn't a good fit in the larger Athabasca region, which was more permeable, and in some case, much closer to the surface.
The Alberta government and Imperial employee Dr. Roger Butler helped perfect Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD), specifically for more permeable oil sands deposits, opening up billions of barrels of reserves that were previously thought to be non-recoverable. Thermal in-situ production from the oil sands reached a record 2 million bbl/day at the end of 2023.
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:00 - 1910 • First attempt - Barber Asphalt Co
01:30 - 1918 • Dynamite trial - Northland Oil Syndicate
02:00 - 1920 • Downhole heater - Dan Driver
02:30 - 1922 • Shallow steam injection - Bill Georgeson
03:00 - 1926 • First in-situ "success" - Jacob Absher
03:55 - 1959 • Steamflooding - Shell
04:28 - 1959 • The nuclear option - Project Oilsand
05:00 - 1968 • Fireflooding - Standard Oil
05:32 - CSS: Cyclic Steam Stimulation - Imperial Oil
06:23 - 1975 • First CSS pilots - Imperial Oil, BP & Shell
06:37 - SAGD: Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage - Dr. Butler
07:17 - AOSTRA: Alberta Oil Sands Technology & Research Authority
07:40 - 1985 • First commercial CSS facility - Imperial Oil
08:20 - 1987 • The Underground Test Facility - AOSTRA
09:15 - SAGD vs CSS - Differences
09:40 - Late-1990s • First SAGD pilots - Encana, ConocoPhillps, JACOS
10:00 - Thermal in-situ production profile (1985-2023)
SOURCES:
Wikipedia • Project Oilsand
Imperial • Upstream Research
Government of Alberta • Alberta's Energy Heritage: Oil Sands
Earle Grey • The Great Canadian Oil Patch
S.C. Ells • Bituminous Sands of Northern Alberta
J. Joseph Fitzgerald • Black Gold with Grit: The Alberta Oil Sands
Peter McKenzie-Brown • Bitumen: The People, Performance and Passion behind Alberta's Oil Sands
Graham Taylor • Imperial Standard: Imperial Oil, Exxon and the Canadian Oil Industry from 1880
K.A. Clark, S.M. Blair • The Bituminous Sands of Alberta
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