How is oil extracted from the tar sands?

Tar sands is extreme oil in every way. Its extraction is particularly energy and water-intensive, polluting, and destructive. It is either strip mined or produced by injecting high pressure steam into the ground to melt the bitumen and get it to flow to the surface.

Herein, what is tar sand or oil sand and how is it extracted and converted to heavy oil?

sand that contains bitumen. extracted by strip mining areas, coverted to heavy oil by seperating the bitumen from clay, sand, and water.

Beside above, how is oil extracted in Canada? Open Pit Mining Currently, 20% of oil sands reserves are accessible via mining techniques. Large shovels scoop the oil sand into trucks which then move it to crushers where the large clumps of earth are processed. Once the oil sand is crushed, hot water is added so it can be pumped to the extraction plant.

Likewise, what is tar sand oil used for?

Tar sands (also known as oil sands) are a mixture of mostly sand, clay, water, and a thick, molasses-like substance called bitumen. Bitumen is made of hydrocarbons—the same molecules in liquid oil—and is used to produce gasoline and other petroleum products.

What is the process of oil extraction?

Extracting crude oil normally starts with drilling wells into an underground reservoir. Some wells (secondary wells) may pump water, steam, acids or various gas mixtures into the reservoir to raise or maintain the reservoir pressure and economical extraction rate.

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Why is oil extraction bad for the environment?

The oil and gas extraction also emits Methane which is the main constituent in natural gas. The gas is more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide, locking in heat more efficiently and escalating global warming.

How is bitumen upgraded?

Bitumen upgrading. Bitumen upgrading is the chemical treatment of bitumen that is used in an attempt to increase its value by creating a substitute for high quality crude oil, known as a synthetic crude oil. Generally this involves reducing the viscosity of the bitumen to allow for shipment.

What is made from bitumen?

Bitumen is an oil based substance. It is a semi-solid hydrocarbon product produced by removing the lighter fractions (such as liquid petroleum gas, petrol and diesel) from heavy crude oil during the refining process. In North America, bitumen is commonly known as “asphalt cement” or “asphalt”.

How much bitumen does it take to make a barrel of oil?

The production of one barrel of synthetic crude oil requires about 2 tons of oil sand and several barrels of water (some of which can be recycled), and successfully removes about 75% of the bitumen from the sand mixture. After separation, the sand is then returned to the mine to fill in empty space that has been mined.

Is bitumen crude oil?

Bitumen is a kind of crude oil found in natural oil sands deposits—it's the heaviest crude oil used today. The oil sands, also known as tar sands, contain a mixture of sand, water and oily bitumen.

How bitumen is obtained?

Petroleum Bitumen, normally called “Bitumen” or “Asphalt” is produced by refining crude oil. Used as a binder in road-building products, it is a very viscous, black or dark brown material. Finally, Bitumen is obtained by vacuum distillation or vacuum flashing of atmospheric residue from the vacuum distillation column.

What are the advantages of tar sands?

The Pros of Tar Sands

It provides a localized economic benefit.
It is a secure source of energy.
Environmental changes can be repaired.
Recipients of tar sands experience economic benefits.
Land preservation efforts can occur simultaneously with tar sands operations.
It fits into existing systems.

Where is the largest tar sand project?

The Athabasca deposit is the largest known reservoir of crude bitumen in the world and the largest of three major oil sands deposits in Alberta, along with the nearby Peace River and Cold Lake deposits (the latter stretching into Saskatchewan).

What is the dirtiest oil?

Tar sands are the dirtiest source of oil on Earth. This extreme source of oil is currently being mined mainly in Alberta Canada, however, oil companies are now pursuing tar sands mines in the U.S. West. Tar sands are composed of clay, sand, water, and bitumen (a heavy black hydrocarbon).

Why is tar sand bad?

The environmental consequences of oil production from Alberta's tar sands are major, beginning with its effect on climate change. North America's transition to oil from the tar sands not only perpetuates, but actually worsens, emissions of greenhouse gas pollution from oil consumption.

Is bitumen a tar?

Bitumen is a naturally occurring dark substance composed of aromatic hydrocarbons and can occur in solid and liquid forms. Tar is a viscous black liquid which is derived through the process of destructive distillation. It can be derived either from coal or petroleum sources, or from wood.

Is tar sands oil dirty?

Tar sand oil is the dirtiest fossil fuel on the planet

Instead, the oil is mixed up with the dirt in Alberta's boreal forest (underneath a bunch of trees) which makes extracting it very difficult. Each barrel of bitumen (that's the technical term for the tar sand) gets soaked in 2.4 barrels of water.

What is the ratio of water used to oil recovered?

This technique generally requires the conversion of between two to five barrels of water into steam for the recovery of one barrel of crude oil. The SAGD steam-oil ratio is between 2/1 to 5/1.

What is tar made from?

Tar is a sticky black liquid made of thick oil. It is a natural substance, oozing out of the ground in places like the La Brea tar pits. Most tar is produced from coal as a byproduct of coke production, but it can also be produced from petroleum, peat or wood.

Is Tar crude oil?

Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. Mineral products resembling tar can be produced from fossil hydrocarbons, such as petroleum.

Is oil a rock?

Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced, called shale oil (not to be confused with tight oil—crude oil occurring naturally in shales).

How big are the oil sands?

Alberta's oil sands lie beneath 142,200 km² of land in the following areas of Northern Alberta: Athabasca.