The efficient recovery of bitumen, a highly viscous form of crude oil, poses significant technical and economic challenges. In recent years, researchers have developed advanced experimental techniques ...

Whether or not anyone likes the idea of ripping up the landscape of northern Alberta or poking lots of well holes into it to access oil-rich sand deposits, the world—and more specifically the U.S. and ...

ONE of the bleakest scenes of man-made destruction is the strip mining of oil sands in the forests of Alberta, Canada. The sand is permeated with natural bitumen, a type of petroleum with the ...

N-Solv Corporation holds patents for proprietary technology for in situ solvent extraction of bitumen from oil sands. The process uses no water and 85% less energy than Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage ...

Imperial Oil Ltd. recently announced that it would proceed with the first phase of the $8 billion (Can.) Kearl oil sands project, a surface mining and bitumen extraction operation about 70 km ...

EDMONTON, Alberta, July 26 (UPI) -- A series of leaks at a Canadian oil company's oil sands operation has called into question the safety of bitumen extracting methods. Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.

Solvents are used to increase production and reduce steam-to-oil ratio in steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). Variations of SAGD that use solvents, such as expanding solvent (ES) SAGD or ...

A novel bitumen extraction project in the Fort McMurray region is facing significant opposition by the community close to which it is located. Drift Resource Technologies, an Okotoks, Alta.-based ...