Stability of Visbroken Products Obtained from Athabasca Bitumen for Pipelie Transportation

摘要

Heavy oils and bitumen produced in Alberta are very viscous <>100,000 cP) and cannot be transported by pipeline, as such. The Canadian pipeline specification for viscosity is 350 cSt at operating temperature. At the present time, the viscosity specification is met by the addition of approximately 25 vol% natural gas condensate. There are a number of major concerns in using natural gas condensate for the reduction of viscosity of heavy oils. First, condensate is relatively expensive. Second, its abundant availability in the future is questionable. Third, it has to be removed from the bulk oil at the point of destination. Finally, its paraffinic character may cause asphaltenes precipitation during pipelining. Therefore, there are major incentives to develop an inexpensive process that reduces heavy oil viscosity -preferably, a process that would be applied in the field with minimum capital and operatin~ costs and would require no hydrogen for product stabilization.