Stuffed chock full of the good stuff, Saskatchewan intends to take over the formerly undisputed heavyweight title of energy producing champ from Alberta. By the good stuff of course I mean heavy oil, oil shale, the Bakken light oil field and of course plentiful coal. Surprisingly, it already surpassed Alberta’s average oil well productivity in 2005.
Obviously much investment is needed before this comes to pass and I’m confident that Alberta won’t sit still in the meantime but continue to invest and develop the Alberta Oil Sands.
Still, they have some intriguing ideas.
Take the CO2 produced from coal operations and inject it into their heavy oil reserves located near Lloydminster and Kindersley to increase the yield of their oil sands projects. Apparently one metric tonne of CO2 injected yields 3 to 4 barrels of crude. This technique is known as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The term EOR also includes techniques such as steam injection, fireflooding or chemical injection.
Naturally this would qualify the coal producer for some sort of credit or tax break for containing and disposing of CO2 in an innovative and clean manner.
Saskatchewan, with contributions from the Federal Government and major industry players, is also pioneering research on a type of chemical injection known as SVX.
SVX or Solvent Vapour Extraction is a technique using propane or butane to alter the viscosity and flow characteristics of the heavy oil, allowing it to flow towards a production wellhead. This is a very promising green and clean oil production method which drastically reduces the amount of water used to bring heavy oil up from the deeps of the earth.
All in all, good news for one of my favourite parts of the country.
Here’s hoping that with the increase in oil sands development and continued technological innovations the provinces oil wealth will allow them to buy an NHL team.
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