Petro-canada

Gulf Canada Resources Limited

Murphy Oil Company Ltd.

Mocal Energy Limited

Imperial Oil Resources

Athabasca Oil Sands Investments, Inc.

Canadian Oil Sands Investments, Inc.

Aec Oil Sands Limited Partnership

Canadian Occidental Petroleum Ltd.

Aec Oil Sands, L.p.

Canadian Occidential Petroleum, Ltd.

Alberta Energy Ltd.

Derrick Kershaw

Waldemar Maciejewski

Jim McTurk

George Cymerman

A large, mechanically agitated pump box is used between a mixer, for mixing oil sand and water to produce a slurry, and a pipeline for conveying the slurry to a processing facility. Prior to the aqueous slurry being discharged into the pump box from the mixer, it is screened to reject large solids. The oversize is directed to an impactor where it is comminuted and the comminuted product is screened again prior to being discharged into the pump box. The pump box is designed to increase the residence time of the slurry in the pump box and to separate the slurry into two phases, the suspended slurry and the larger lumps that cannot be suspended. The larger lumps that settle in the pump box are recycled to the impactor for comminution.

Agitated slurry pump box for oil sand hydrotransport

A mixer circuit, in the form of a vertically oriented stack of components, functions to slurry oil sand with water in preparation for pumping through a pipeline. The oil sand is initially dropped from the end of a conveyor. It is contacted in mid-air with a stream of water to distribute the water through the oil sand and to wet the latter. The mixture drops into a downwardly slanted trough. The water and oil sand mix as they move turbulently through the open-ended trough. The slurry is deflected as it leaves the trough and is spread in the form of a thin sheet on an apron. It is then fed over screens to reject oversize lumps. The screened slurry drops into a pump box. The rejected lumps are comminuted in an impactor positioned at the end of the screens. The comminuted oil sand is screened to remove remaining oversize lumps and the screened comminuted oil sands are delivered into the pump box. The structure is compact and the oversize reject loss is relatively low.

Slurrying oil sand for hydrotransport in a pipeline

A mixer circuit, in the form of a vertically oriented stack of components, functions to slurry oil sand with water in preparation for pumping through a pipeline. The oil sand is initially dropped from the end of a conveyor. It is contacted in mid-air with a stream of water to distribute the water through the oil sand and to wet the latter. The mixture drops into a downwardly slanted trough. The water and oil sand mix as they move turbulently through the open-ended trough. The slurry is deflected as it leaves the trough and is spread in the form of a thin sheet on an apron. It is then fed over screens to reject oversize lumps. The screened slurry drops into a pump box. The screened slurry drops into a box. The rejected lumps are comminuted in an impactor positioned at the end of the screens. The comminuted oil sand is screened to remove remaining oversize lumps and the screened comminuted oil sands are delivered into the pump box. The structure is compact and the oversize reject loss is relatively low.

Growing community of inventors

Fort McMurray, Canada

Derrick Kershaw