New Technology Magazine

Ivanhoe Successfully Tests Ensyn's Heavy-To-Light Oil Technology

[Daily News] Ivanhoe Energy Inc. has announced the successful completion of performance testing at Ensyn Petroleum International Ltd.'s oil commercial demonstration facility (CDF). The facility, located in the Belridge heavy oil field near Bakersfield, California, converts heavy oil into light oil.
"The successful completion of this testing paves the way for the commercial deployment of this technology in heavy oil fields around the world, and will provide the platform for Ivanhoe Energy's acquisition and development of equity interests in heavy oil reserves and production worldwide," said Leon Daniel, Ivanhoe Energy's president and chief executive officer.

"This technology has significant wide-reaching implications to help expand the world's future supplies of oil by converting heavy oil into more-desired light oil that is in high demand in the world petroleum market."

The successful outcome of the tests satisfies Ivanhoe Energy's technical performance requirements and criteria for the completion of its acquisition of Ensyn Group, Inc. Closing of the transaction is expected to occur early in the second quarter, following regulatory approvals.

The results of the tests at the CDF were verified by independent consulting firm, Muse, Stancil & Co. of Dallas, Texas, an independent consulting firm that specializes in the oil and gas sector. Muse Stancil reported that "the data obtained from the CDF process performance tests witnessed for Ivanhoe Energy confirmed that the liquid product quality, volume yield and by-product energy yields are consistent with the processing data on the same marker crude in Ensyn's small-scale pilot equipment in Ottawa, Canada."

The CDF demonstrated an overall processing capacity of approximately 1,000-barrels-per-day of raw heavy oil by operating Ensyn's core Rapid Thermal Processing (RTP) "hot section" at its capacity of approximately 300-barrels-per-day.

With the completion of the successful test, Ivanhoe Energy and Ensyn Petroleum have awarded a contract to Colt Engineering Corporation of Calgary to develop designs for fully commercial modules of 10,000-15,000 barrels per day of raw, heavy crude input. The modular design allows for economic small-field development, as well as efficient, large-scale field development projects utilizing multiple modules as production capacity builds up.

The California facility, the first of its kind in the world, will continue to be used in the near term to test other local heavy oils, as well as a range of crudes from potential projects around the world. A number of process and configuration alternatives that are expected to be required for various site-specific commercial applications also will be tested.

The RTP technology offers an excellent opportunity to optimize the development of mature heavy oil fields and also enables the transformation of "stranded" heavy oil deposits with little or no value into lighter, more valuable crude. Ivanhoe Energy intends to apply the Ensyn technology as a field-located heavy oil upgrading tool for the acquisition of heavy oil reserves and production worldwide.

The RTP technology produces lighter, more valuable crude oil at lower costs and in smaller-sized plants than conventional technologies.

The technology eliminates or substantially mitigates the three key challenges of heavy oil development: 1) the value of the upgraded heavy crude oil is increased to approximate conventional light crude oil values; 2) the upgraded crude viscosity is dramatically reduced so it can be easily transported by pipeline; and 3) an RTP facility can yield large amounts of surplus energy as an on-site source for production of steam and/or power used in heavy-oil recovery.

In addition, the RTP process can be installed in scalable, modular facilities to match the field development.

Ivanhoe Energy is a leader in the application of technologically innovative methods designed to significantly improve the company's reserve base and production, including the upgrading of heavy oil to light oil, state-of-the-art drilling techniques, enhanced oil recovery and the conversion of natural gas to liquids.
You are here: Home Arrow More Arrow Archived Articles Arrow Ivanhoe Successfully Tests Ensyn's Heavy-To-Light Oil Technology