Surface Mining Techniques Used In The Oil Sands Oil

In view of the good experience with the bucket wheel excavators digging oil sands a bucket wheel excavator is also used for the removal of overburden since 1976 syncrude canada ltd is also winning oilsands by the surface mining method it present draglines remove the overburden and dig the oil sands

Extraction of bitumen from the alberta oil sands by surface mining will have a major impact on the hydrology of the areas immediately

The insitu advantage smaller footprint the surface area required for the wellheads and central processing plant is very small relative to the size of the oil sands situ facilities therefore have a much smaller footprint than surface mining operations insitu plants require about 17th the land area of an equivalentsized mining facility

Tar sands oil shales and gas hydrates are examples of objective 1 surface mining control and reclamation act which of the following techniques is used to identify structural traps that might contain oil and natural gas levels of what chemical in the atmosphere is mountaintop removal using a dragline one of the most destructive

Extraction of bitumen from the alberta oil sands by surface mining will have a major impact on the hydrology of the areas immediately

The oil sands in northern alberta constitute of the largest hydrocarbon reserves in the world it is estimated that the total amount of bitumen is over 16 trillion barrels with over 178 billion of those recoverable under current economic conditions1 of these amounts 35 billion barrels are accessible by surface mining with the remainder

The athabasca oil sands representing about 80 of canadas bitumen reserves also happens to be the only one shallow enough to lend itself to surface mining which as we will see is the primary method for removing oil sands oil sands have been surface mined from this location since 1967

Reclamation is the process of attempting to return land used for oil sands mining or tailings storage back to its original natural state the goal behind reclamation is to return land back to nature disturbances that are a result of oil sands mining have significant impacts on the land and reclamation is one way to mediate this impact this page will focus on how oil sands land

Surface mining is used when oil sands deposits lie within 70 meters 200 feet of the earths surface twenty per cent of oil sands reserves are close enough to the surface to be mined large shovels scoop oil sand into haul trucks that transport it to crushers where large clumps are broken down

May 1 surface mining techniques used in the oil sands get access to our complete database of historical oil and gas prices energy statistics and oil sands production data all in excel format no special software required

Insitu extraction methods are used to recover bitumen that lies too deep beneath the surface for mining greater than 75 metres underground currently 80 of oil sands reserves are accessible via insitu techniques steam assisted gravity drainage sagd is currently the most widely used

The most common method of crude oil extraction is drilling crude oil is extracted from oil sands through strip mining or a variety of more why its important to know the crude oil extraction jan 15 2015 when crude oil prices are high this method can be used to increase oil extraction and vice versa the recent decline in oil prices

The water used in oil sands development is used in surface mining to separate the extracted oil sand into sand and bitumen components then water is converted to steam in sagd operations to separate the bitumen from the sand before it is extracted the water used in the oil sands can be recycled however currently only small amounts of this

Active oil sands mining projects all mine sites are located in the athabasca basin just north of fort mcmurray the mines strattle both sides of the athabasca river where the oil sands deposit is relatively close to the surface there are currently 9 active oil sands mining operations in alberta 8 are in operation and 1 under construction

The highly viscous black stuff is known as bitumen the bitumen in oil sands is a thin coating wrapped around a layer of water that envelops a grain of sand separating that thin coating of bitumen from the sand and water is the primary objective of oil sands mining and extraction productionquality oil sands are not found on the surface

Only 20 percent of albertas oil sands can be recovered through surfacemining techniques if the oil sand layer is deeper than 75 metres from the surface an in situ in place technology is used steam assisted gravity drainage or sagd is the most common in situ process presently used this process involves drilling two lshaped

Feb 19 2013 oil sands mining uses up almost as much energy as it produces thanks to high global oil prices industry can afford the large amount of energy needed to extract the oil

Oil sands deposits that are greater than 75 meters below the ground surface are usually extracted without removing the overlying rock and dirt this is known as in situ oil sands mining oil sands deposits are usually split into two types of deposits shallow deposits are located within approximately 75 meters of the ground surface and are extracted using surface mining methods

Surface mining about 20 percent of the worlds oil sands are located close to the surface in surface mining large hydraulic and electrically powered shovels are used to dig up oil sands from the ground and load them into trucks these trucks can typically hold up to 320 tons of oil sands per load

The accessible ore of oil sands is located 50 to 200 m from the surface due to the difference in depth recovery of oil sands ore calls for different techniques open pit mining for shallow resources and steam assisted gravity drainage sagd for deeper resources these two oil sands processes techniques are described in more detail below

In surface mining companies use trucks and shovels to scoop up oil sands from the ground the oil sands are then transported to extraction plants where bitumen heavy oil is separated from the sand a company might decide to sell its extracted bitumen as a product on its own alternatively it might decide to further upgrade the bitumen to

Answer oil sands mining can be used in certain areas of the oil sands where the sand is close enough to the surface that its economical to get of the oil sand is below the surface within reason and were able to mine down to it but once it gets so deep that mining becomes too expensive for the payoff for the oil different methods that are referred to as in situ are used to get

212 dredging mining generally used most often for mineralsands and some nearshore alluvial diamond mining operations dredging performed from floa ting vessels accomplishes the

Figure 1 a caterpillar 797 truck used in the extraction of oil sands for hauling the extracted sand surface mining is a technique used to obtain bitumen from oil sands where the oil sands deposits are located fairly close to the surface if the reserves are shallow enough earth moving equipment can dig out oil sand for processing

The most common method of crude oil extraction is drilling crude oil is extracted from oil sands through strip mining or a variety of more why its important to know the crude oil extraction jan 15 2015 when crude oil prices are high this method can be used to increase oil extraction and vice versa the recent decline in oil prices

Jul 15 2015 oil sands suncor to test in situ rf recovery without steam alberta suncor energy of calgary plans to test a means of in situ bitumen recovery using radio frequency rf waves rather than steam the new technology will be tested at the dover site north of fort mcmurray

We use large trucks and shovels to extract the oil sands only 20 of all oil sands are close enough to the surface to be mined the reclamation process begins as soon as mining operations are completed in situ using techniques that are similar to conventional oil production we inject steam into the reservoir to heat the bitumen so it can be

The highly viscous black stuff is known as bitumen the bitumen in oil sands is a thin coating wrapped around a layer of water that envelops a grain of sand separating that thin coating of bitumen from the sand and water is the primary objective of oil sands mining and extraction productionquality oil sands are not found on the surface