Other

Canadian National Railway Company

Suncor Energy Inc.

John Bleile

Kasra Nikooyeh

Amanda Prefontaine

Derek Stanger

James Auld

Jesse White

Richard Anthony McFarlane

Iftikhar Huq

Ali Abbaspour

Brian Doucette

Ruoyu Cheng

Richard Mcfarlane

Roy Cheng

Historically, bitumen from oil sands has been carried over land using trucks, pipelines, or by rail, and over water using tankers. Each mode of transportation faces economic or technical challenges of its own. Here there is provided a method for transporting bitumen, comprising: receiving in a dry bulk shipping container a load of discrete pellets with bitumen entrapped into the pellets, wherein the pellets have non-stick outer surfaces configured to prevent the bitumen from sticking to walls of the container when the pellets are carried in the container; and transporting the dry bulk shipping container containing the pellets over a distance. Alternatively or additionally, the pellets may have non-stick outer surfaces configured to prevent the load from caking when the pellets are carried in the container such that the load of bitumen pellets is substantially free-flowing when the transporting is completed.

Method and systems for transporting bitumen in solidified form

A non-aqueous extraction (NAE) process for producing bitumen from oil sands ore can include a multistage bitumen extraction step where paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil are added at a downstream stage of extraction at solvent-to-bitumen ratios below asphaltene precipitation onset threshold to remove bitumen from the solid mineral material, while the ore is added to a first stage to mix with the solvent-bitumen mixture and produce solvent diluted bitumen. The process includes recovering the solvent diluted bitumen and the solvent diluted tailings from the extraction step. The solvent diluted bitumen is subjected to deasphalting to produce solvent diluted deasphalted bitumen that is used as a source of the paraffinic solvent and deasphalted oil supplied to extraction. The tailings and asphaltene fraction from deasphalting can be subjected to washing and the washed material can then be subjected to sand solvent recovery. The NAE process can be operated within an operating envelop for effective and efficient performance.

Non-aqueous extraction and separation of bitumen from oil sands ore using paraffinic solvent and deasphalted bitumen

A solid bitumen pellet, including a mixture of bitumen and an additive, where the additive operates to increase the viscosity of the mixture. Optionally, the pellet includes a protective shell.

Growing community of inventors

Calmar, Canada

John Bleile