By Chester Dawson
CALGARY, Alberta--Canadian oil sands company Suncor Energy Inc.
said Tuesday that it and several partners will begin a pilot
project using radio frequencies to produce heavy crude, which the
company said was the first such production test of the technology
on subterranean oil sands deposits.
The consortium, which includes oil sands producers Devon Energy
Corp. and Cnooc Ltd. unit Nexen Energy ULC, along with Melbourne,
Florida-based Harris Corp., will start small-scale test production
at a pair of wells on Suncor's Dover site in northern Alberta and
run the pilot for about two years.
Radio frequency-based extraction holds the promise of becoming a
more environmentally friendly and lower cost method than
traditional oil sands production. It could reduce or eliminate the
need for steam generated by heating water with natural gas, an
expensive and carbon-intensive process.
"If successful and commercially viable, [it] has the potential
to improve economic and environmental performance in the oil sands
by eliminating the need for water" to produce oil, Gary Bunio,
Suncor's general manager of oil sands strategic technology, said in
a statement.
The pilot project will cost about 44 million Canadian dollars
($34.57 million) and, if successful, will lead to a full commercial
scale field test, according to a Suncor spokesperson.
The new technology involves sending electromagnetic waves into
hockey puck-hard deposits of oil embedded in sand underground,
something like an underground microwave oven. The liquefied crude,
or asphalt, is then mixed with a recyclable chemical solvent and
retrieved via a horizontally-drilled well.
Known as enhanced solvent extraction incorporating
electromagnetic heating, it is one of a handful of developing
technologies that may be used in the future to exploit large-scale
deposits of oil sands that are too deep underground to reach by
strip mining.
Experts says it could ultimately work in conjunction with or
even replace the prevailing methods of tapping into those deeply
buried oil sands with injections of steam, currently the preferred
technique for surfacing heavy crude supplies.
Suncor said its consortium began working on the technology in
2011.
Write to Chester Dawson at chester.dawson@wsj.com
Access Investor Kit for Suncor Energy, Inc.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=CA8672241079
Access Investor Kit for CNOOC Ltd.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=HK0883013259
Access Investor Kit for CNOOC Ltd.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US1261321095
Access Investor Kit for Devon Energy Corp.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US25179M1036
Access Investor Kit for Harris Corp.
Visit
http://www.companyspotlight.com/partner?cp_code=P479&isin=US4138751056
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires