Canadian Startup Targeting Mineral and Bitumen Recovery from Oil Sands Tailings
23 December 2007
Mine-based oil sands production, in which the oil sands dug up and processed to extract the bitumen, results in large amounts of tailings which have significant deposits of heavy minerals. Titanium Corporation, a Canadian start-up, has made the recovery of minerals such as titanium and zircon from tailings the core of its business plan. The company is also working to expand its ability to recover additional bitumen from the tailings as a strategic extension of its business.
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| Overview of the process of recovering minerals from tailings. Click to enlarge. |
Titanium and zircon a represent a $12 billion a year industry and growing. Zircon is currently in critical short supply as worldwide demand continues to outpace supply.
Titanium Corporation began in 2004 with the commissioning of a facility in Regina, which worked with dry, deposited tailings trucked down from the oil sands site. Following encouraging results from this pilot, the company designed and moved a portable facility on-site in Fort McMurray, connected directly to the fresh tailings line.
Fresh tailings are somewhat different than the dry material, and the company redesigned its process and commissioned a pilot concentrator on site in the fall of 2006. This pilot facility was designed to concentrate the heavy minerals, remove bitumen and recover bitumen and solvents used in the removal process.
Processing fresh tailings proved more complex and is taking more time than the company had anticipated, said Scott Nelson, president and CEO, during an annual update conference call on 11 December.
We came out of the on-site program late last year with a number of areas requiring improvement, including water recycling, solvent usage, equipment and mechanical issues.
—Scott Nelson
One of the problems is that bitumen remaining on the minerals is impeding downstream separation processing. The company has determined hat minerals and bitumen recovery are interdependent. This has led to work on an integrated approach to tailings processing, according to Nelson.
This work entails categorizing the hydrocarbons in the tailings stream, testing different solvents, testing alternate physical and hydraulic separation methods, testing organic and inorganic chemicals among other approaches.
—Scott Nelson
The company’s research partners are Canmet and SRC (the Saskatchewan Research Counsel) located in Regina.
The company has also engaged an independent engineering consultant to advise on the environmental impacts of oil sands tailings processing, including estimated CO2 and SOx, NOx, and VOx emissions.
In consultations with the oil sands industry, however, the company has consistently been told that extraction of the additional bitumen in the tailings would be most important to the industry, according to Nelson.
The Froth treatment from oil sands extraction processes generally contained bitumen losses in the range of 3% of the original bitumen mined. In the current oil sands production rate, this represents an excess of 8 million barrels per year of lost bitumen in total from the mine-based sites. Industry forecasts expect mine-based oil sands production to more than double by the 2015 time frame, which will likely increase proportionally the amount of bitumen lost in the tailing.
More efficient use of resources, both minerals and bitumen and decreased emissions from tailings ponds all related to a high growth industry, is a very compelling value proposition.
Accordingly, the company is “redoubling” its efforts to resolve bitumen removal and to develop bitumen recovery technology, according to Nelson. The company anticipates that it may be able to recover 50% of the bitumen now lost in the tailings.
Resources
Nice. Pulling another 8 million barrels per year (~USD1 billion/year at current USD90/barrel price) out of waste in the next few years is encouraging.
Oh, and improving environmental impact etc. is good too.
Posted by: km519 | 24 December 2007 at 08:53 AM
km519,
This seems to be a worthwhile endeavour.
Removing 50% of the 3% bitumen in tailings, at all current and planned tar sands extraction sites would be a good first step.
However, the other 1.5% + a multitude of solvents and other chemicals going into the huge chemical ponds remains to be addressed.
Many more cleaning steps are required to avoid an ecological mess.
Posted by: Harvey D | 24 December 2007 at 10:11 AM
Oh, I totally agree, Harvey D... A recovery method is a good first step.
Posted by: km519 | 26 December 2007 at 10:59 AM