Oilsands: Applying Conventional Technology
in Unconventional Ways
It is well documented that the world’s conventional oil supplies are declining. However, although conventional crude oil production is in decline in Canada, the production
of unconventional oil is on the rise – in a big
way! This is largely a result of the billions of
dollars being invested to extract oil from the
approximately 174 billion barrels of proven
oilsands reserves in the Athabasca region of
Alberta. Production of non-conventional oil
and oilsands is less efficient than conventional
methods of oil production. In fact, oilsands
slurries sometimes referred to as ‘liquid sandpaper’ present numerous process and operational challenges to oilsands companies in
terms of maintaining measurement accuracy,
process predictability and plant uptime. Of
the billions of dollars being invested in oilsands, innovative technologies and processes
emissions. The application of sonar technology to provide new measurement capability
and insight into oilsands slurry flows, rheology and pipeline wear is just one example how
the application of a proven technology in innovative and unconventional ways is helping
oilsands operators to become more efficient.
While non-contact, passive sonar flow and
entrained air measurements are now widely
used in measurement and control applications, sonar and signal processing technology
have been extended to address other long-standing process and condition monitoring
challenges faced by operators.
Leveraging Fundamental Science and
Innovation
Sound Navigation and Ranging, sonar, is a
widely recognized and utilized science. Since
the type or class of sub. Sonar technology is
utilized in a variety of industries, most notably in the exploration and production of conventional oilfields.
Essentially, there are two types of sonar:
passive and active. In passive sonar, sound is
generated naturally by a source object and
then ‘listened to’ by an array of microphones
or transducers, set apart at fixed distances.
Using signal processing algorithms, the sonar
system then measures the speed at which the
pressure waves pass by the array of transducers (coherent turbulent eddies in a slurry or
fluid flow for example). Active sonar devices
transmit a series of pulses that travel through
a media, reflect off of a target object and then
return to the receiver. By knowing the speed
of sound of the media (a process pipe for example) and the time that it takes for the sound
waves to travel from the target and back to
the source, the distance between the source
and the target object can be determined.
Sonar can be used to measure more than
just speed and distance of an object. Utilizing
sophisticated signal processing algorithms,
sonar can ‘draw’ a picture of the environment
it is applied to, providing information about
the type, shape and movement of materials in
an oil reservoir formation for example.
Figure 1: Oilsands Slurry Velocity Profiles
are being developed by both the oilsands
companies and suppliers to the industry to
increase efficiencies and reduce discharge and
World War I the world’s navies have leveraged the physics of sonar in submarines to
detect the location, direction, speed, and even
Applying Unconventional Solutions to
Conventional Problems
Over the past 12 years CiDRA, a company
based in Connecticut, (coincidentally home to
one of the United States Navy’s oldest submarine bases), has generated a number of patents and inventions based on sonar technology
used to provide real time measurement, control and characterization of industrial process
flows and pipelines. Just as sound propagation
enables an oil field service company to map a
reservoir, CiDRA’s sonar technology leverages
the same basic principles to allow its customers to accurately measure and characterize
