Fort Hills Energy L.p.

Xiaoli Yang

Shawn Van Der Merwe

Gary Foulds

Techniques provided herein relate to regulating at least one operating parameter of a paraffinic froth treatment (PFT) operation and controlling the quality of the produced bitumen in response to a determined concentration of at least one residual metal in a PFT process stream. Determination of the residual metal concentration is based on acquired NIR spectral measurements of the PFT process stream. An alkaline agent dosage in primary extraction operation can be for example regulated in response to a difference between a determined calcium concentration and a calcium concentration specification.

Monitoring of residual metals in paraffinic froth treatment operations and process control

Techniques described herein relate to producing bitumen while monitoring various aspects of paraffinic froth treatment (PFT) operations using near infrared (NIR) spectrometry and chemometric analysis to continuously monitor and enable measurements of physical and chemical properties of various streams in PFT operations, which can be done in real time online and can facilitate process control. NIR spectrometry can be used to acquire NIR spectra measurements from a PFT process stream and the NIR spectra measurements and chemometric analysis can, in turn, be used to determine composition characteristics of the PFT process stream as well as operational features of a PFT process unit. For example, NIR spectra can be used to determine upward velocity in a PFT settler to facilitate settler operation for diluted bitumen quality control. NIR spectra can be obtained using reflectance or transmission probes which can be positioned within particular phase of a stratified PFT process stream.

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Calgary, Canada

Xiaoli Yang