If …

“If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
Albert Einstein, Observer, Jan. 15, 1950 / US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

If …
You are new to Heavy Oil

If …
You are a Heavy Oil expert trying to explain basic concepts to a lay audience (such as your CEO / CFO / CIO)

If …
You head a research team with newly hired young members

Then you will find the Schlumberger HeavyOilInfo (http://www.heavyoilinfo.com/) site very helpful.

Here, for example, are excerpts from one of the articles on the site …

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Researching bitumen behavior
Dr. Murray Gray spoke to heavyoilinfo.com to describe the work of the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation at the University of Alberta.


Heading up the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation (COSI) at the University of Alberta, Dr. Murray Gray, and his team, are focused on improving the efficiency, economics, and environmental impact of extracting and upgrading Canadian mineable oil sands resources.
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Focus on bitumen
The Centre has been operating for about three years and has, to date, been mostly involved with laboratory work. Most of the efforts are focused on bitumen, defined in Alberta as less than 9 degrees API, although the term is commonly applied to liquids below 10 degrees API—part of a continuum of crude oil types.
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Upgrading—a cyclic business
Like many parts of the oil business, the economics of heavy oil upgrading experiences major ups and downs. In the early 2000s, heavy crude was 30-40% cheaper than conventional oil. The last two years have seen a reduction in the differential market price between Canadian heavy crude and light crudes—down to as little as USD 8-10. Supplies from Mexico and Venezuela into the U.S. have declined, leading to overcapacity in the U.S. upgrading market for heavy crudes. In response, American operators are buying Canadian heavy oil at relatively high prices to fill their spare capacity. Meanwhile, several major projects to expand or build new upgrading plants have been shelved. Future increases in production rates will likely lead to reductions in heavy crude prices. When this happens, the economic base for building new upgraders will return. For upgrading companies, getting the timing right is the key to profitability.
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Unlocking the molecules
Understanding the structure of heavy oil molecules is key to designing more efficient processes, however their complex physical chemistry remains largely a mystery. Gray suggests that the molecular structure of DNA is relatively simple in comparison to the millions of complex heavy oil components that stick to each other in various different ways. We need to unlock their molecular structure in order to understand features such as the effect of temperature and pressure on phase behavior, viscosity and asphaltene production.


Two primary approaches are currently being used to determine the structure of heavier oil molecules, typically with molecular weights in the range of 500-1500 mol. One—a “top down” approach—is to try to deconstruct the components of the crude. The other approach is to synthesize chemicals then see how they behave. However, as Gray notes, “asphaltenes are not available from a catalog”, so they remain rather a “black box” to science.
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Developments in nanotechnology have provided new tools that have enabled a revolution in the study of catalysis. Nanotechology has already delivered new catalysts to remove sulfur from petroleum, thereby improving urban air quality. We can now determine how a catalyst does and/or should look atom-by-atom and, if we know the required process, can design the ideal catalyst to achieve the desired result. The quest to reduce carbon dioxide emissions remains challenging, and work is already underway to capture CO2 from upgraders for injection in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects.
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About Murray Gray
Dr. Murray R. Gray is the scientific director for the Centre for Oil Sands Innovation and holds the NSERC-Imperial Oil Industrial Research Chair in Oil Sands Upgrading and the Canada Research Chair in Oil Sands Upgrading. He is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering at the University of Alberta. Gray has a BASc from the University of Toronto, MEng from the University of Calgary and PhD from the California Institute of Technology. His research builds on the fundamentals of chemical reaction engineering and mass transfer to understand and control the reactions and properties of oil sands components at the molecular level.
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Jean Steinhardt’s Web (http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/) includes a continually changing list of 10 Tips for Really Reliable Research. Take a look … it will be worth your time.