Introduction There are three major oil sand areas in Canada, all in Alberta. There is also an oil sand deposit on Melville Island in the Arctic. The three major oil sand areas are from highest to lowest volume of reserves-in-place (AEUB 2003) Athabasca, Cold Lake and Peace River oil sand areas notwithstanding that bitumen reserves are also evident in subcropping carbonate rocks in Athabasca and...

Heavy and extra heavy crude oils are forming tremendous part of world crudes (about 40%). There are some problems limiting accessibility as a galore hydrocarbon source. One of limiting process is transportation which consumes very huge amount of energy due to their high viscosity. So, if there were a simple, stable, practicable in each situation and environmental friendly solution, these hydroc...

Heavy crude oil can be upgraded to lighter oil using several techniques. However, current methods usually require high temperatures, long reaction duration, and cause serious environmental pollution. This study shows that by using carbon nanocatalysts, heavy crude oil can be efficiently upgraded to lighter oil at a relatively low temperature of about 150 °C. The temperature of crude oil was inc...

Fully compositional and thermal reservoir simulation capabilities are important in oil exploration and production. There are significant resources in existing wells and in heavy oil, oil sands, and deep-water reservoirs. This article has two main goals: (1) to clearly identify chemical engineering sub-problems within reservoir simulation that the PSE community can potentially make contributions...

it has been known for years that microbial surface active agents have a wide range of applications not only in oil spill environment but also in many industries. their properties including: (i) changing surface active phenomena, such as lowering of surface and interfacial tensions, (ii) wetting and penetrating actions, (iii) spreading, (iv) hydrophylicity and hydrophobicity actions, (v) microbi...

HEAVY silicone oils have shown promising results in the treatment of retinal detachments in the inferior quadrant in several studies. However, their use remains controversial, attendees at a symposium at the 7th EURETINA Congress heard. Proponents of silicone oil say that the specific gravity of these compounds makes them more efficient than conventional silicone oils in providing inferior tamp...

Petroleum refineries utilize thermal cracking, catalytic cracking and hydrogenation processes to produce high quality oil products. Hydrodesulfurization is one of the most important methods to remove sulfur from petroleum fractions. Heavy oil contains various types of sulfur compound. The structure of the sulfur compounds affects the ease of sulfur removal1). Acyclic sulfur compounds including ...