Great Canadian Oil Sands Limited

Sun Oil Company of Pennsylvania

Joseph C Anderson

H James Davitt

In a hot water process for extracting bitumen from tar sands comprising forming a mixture of tar sands and water, settling the mixture in a primary extraction zone to form an upper bitumen froth layer, a middlings layer and a sand tailings layer, passing a part of the middlings layer to an air scavenger zone to recover additional bitumen therefrom, the improvement which comprises adding the aerated bitumen-depleted aerated middlings material from the air scavenger zone to the mixture of tar sands and water before the settling step.

Recycling aerated scavenged middlings to conditioning step of hot water

In a hot water process for extracting bitumen from tar sands comprising forming a mixture of tar sands and water, settling the mixture in a primary extraction zone to form an upper bitumen froth layer, a middlings layer, and a sand tailings layer, passing a part of the middlings layer to an air scavenger zone to recover additional bitumen therefrom, the improvement which comprises aerating the mixture of tar sands and water before separating bitumen froth from the mixture in a gravity settling zone. This aeration can be accomplished by adding an aerated recycle middlings stream to the tar sands water-mixture prior to the settling step.

Aerating tar sands-water mixture prior to settling in a gravity settling

A method for improving recovery in a hot water process for extracting bitumen from tar sands comprising adding bitumen-depleted middlings recovered from a scavenger zone to the sand layer in a primary extraction vessel at a point below the surface of the sand.

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Fort McMurray, Canada

Joseph C Anderson