Dilbit
Dilbit (diluted bitumen) is a bitumen diluted with one or more lighter petroleum products, typically natural-gas condensates such as naphtha. Diluting bitumen makes it much easier to transport, for example in pipelines. Per the Alberta Oil Sands Bitumen Valuation Methodology, "Dilbit Blends" means "Blends made from heavy crudes and/or bitumens and a diluent, usually natural-gas condensate, for the purpose of meeting pipeline viscosity and density specifications, where the density of the diluent included in the blend is less than 800 kg/m3." If the diluent density is greater than or equal to 800 kg/m3, the diluent is typically synthetic crude and accordingly the blend is called synbit. Reasons for dilution Bitumen and heavy oils are often produced from remote deposits such as the Athabasca oil sands in Alberta, Canada and the Orinoco tar sands in Venezuela. Before 1980, most produced bitumen was transported by truck, but trucking is seasonally restricted and relativel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kalamazoo River Oil Spill
The Kalamazoo River oil spill occurred in July 2010 when a pipeline operated by Enbridge (Line 6B) burst and flowed into Talmadge Creek, a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. A break in the pipeline resulted in one of the largest inland oil spills in U.S. history (the largest was the 1991 spill near Grand Rapids, Minnesota). The pipeline carries diluted bitumen (dilbit), a heavy crude oil from Canada's Athabasca oil sands to the United States. Cleanup took five years. Following the spill, the volatile hydrocarbon diluents evaporated, leaving the heavier bitumen to sink in the water column. of the Kalamazoo River were closed for clean-up until June 2012, when portions of the river were re-opened. On March 14, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered Enbridge to return to dredge portions of the river to remove submerged oil and oil-contaminated sediment. The spill On Sunday, July 25, 2010, at about 5:58 p.m. EDT, a pipe segment ruptured in the Enbridge Ener ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pipeline Transport
Pipeline transport is the long-distance transportation of a liquid or gas through a system of pipes—a pipeline—typically to a market area for consumption. The latest data from 2014 gives a total of slightly less than of pipeline in 120 countries of the world. The United States had 65%, Russia had 8%, and Canada had 3%, thus 76% of all pipeline were in these three countries. ''Pipeline and Gas Journals worldwide survey figures indicate that of pipelines are planned and under construction. Of these, represent projects in the planning and design phase; reflect pipelines in various stages of construction. Liquids and gases are transported in pipelines, and any chemically stable substance can be sent through a pipeline. Pipelines exist for the transport of crude and refined petroleum, fuels – such as oil, natural gas and biofuels – and other fluids including sewage, slurry, water, beer, hot water or steam for shorter distances. Pipelines are useful for transporting water fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bitumen
Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term asphaltum was also used. Full text at Internet Archive (archive.org) The word is derived from the Ancient Greek ἄσφαλτος ''ásphaltos''. The largest natural deposit of asphalt in the world, estimated to contain 10 million tons, is the Pitch Lake located in La Brea in southwest Trinidad ( Antilles island located on the northeastern coast of Venezuela), within the Siparia Regional Corporation. The primary use (70%) of asphalt is in road construction, where it is used as the glue or binder mixed with aggregate particles to create asphalt concrete. Its other main uses are for bituminous waterproofing products, including production of roofing felt and for sealing flat roofs. In material sciences and engineering, the terms "aspha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Talmadge Creek
Talmadge Creek is a tributary of the Kalamazoo River. It is located in Calhoun County, Michigan, near the county seat of Marshall. 2010 crude oil spill The creek is notable as the site of a major oil spill that made its way into the Kalamazoo River. On 26 July 2010, an estimated of crude oil-like dilbit leaked into the creek from a 30-inch pipeline operated by the Enbridge Pipeline System. The pipeline intersects the creek 0.5 miles east of Interstate 69 and approximately two miles south of Marshall. The leak location was a wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ... located less than 2 miles upstream from the Kalamazoo River, ensuring that the spilled hydrocarbons would soon enter the larger waterway, despite efforts to use booms to prevent the dilbit from r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthetic Crude
Synthetic crude is the output from a bitumen/extra heavy oil upgrader facility used in connection with oil sand production. It may also refer to shale oil, an output from an oil shale pyrolysis. The properties of the synthetic crude depend on the processes used in the upgrading. Typically, it is low in sulfur and has an API gravity of around 30. It is also known as "upgraded crude". Synthetic crude is an intermediate product produced when an extra-heavy or unconventional oil source is upgraded into a transportable form. Synthetic crude is then shipped to oil refineries where it is further upgraded into finished products. Synthetic crude may also be mixed, as a diluent, with heavy oil to create synbit. Synbit is more viscous than synthetic crude, but can also be a less expensive alternative for transporting heavy oil to a conventional refinery≠. Syncrude Canada Syncrude Canada Ltd. is one of the world's largest producers of synthetic crude oil from oil sands and the largest s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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InsideClimate News
''Inside Climate News'' is a non-profit news organization, focusing on environmental journalism.Curtis BrainardInsideClimate wins a Pulitzer ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (April 16, 2013). The publication writes that it "covers clean energy, carbon energy, nuclear energy and environmental science—plus the territory in between where law, policy and public opinion are shaped."About Inside Climate News Inside Climate News. Retrieved May 10, 2017. Established in 2007, the Brooklyn, New York-based website covers environmental issues. In 2013 three of its staff members won a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on the Kalamazoo River oil spill in Michigan. History [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Froth Treatment
Bitumen froth treatment is a process used in the Athabasca oil sands (AOS) bitumen recovery operations to remove fine inorganics—water and mineral particles—from bitumen froth, by diluting the bitumen with a light hydrocarbon solvent—either naphthenic or paraffinic—to reduce the viscosity of the froth and to remove contaminants that were not removed in previous water-based gravity recovery phases. Bitumen with a high viscosity or with too many contaminants, is not suitable for transporting through pipelines or refining. The original and conventional naphthenic froth treatment (NFT) uses a naphtha solvent with the addition of chemicals. Paraffinic Solvent Froth Treatment (PSFT), which was first used commercially in the Albian Sands in the early 2000s, results in a cleaner bitumen with lower levels of contaminates, such as water and mineral solids. Following froth treatments, bitumen can be further upgraded using "heat to produce synthetic crude oil by means of a coker unit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Diluent
A diluent (also referred to as a filler, dilutant or thinner) is a diluting agent. Certain fluids are too viscous to be pumped easily or too dense to flow from one particular point to the other. This can be problematic, because it might not be economically feasible to transport such fluids in this state. To ease this restricted movement, diluents are added. This decreases the viscosity of the fluids, thereby also decreasing the pumping/transportation costs. One industrial application is the transport of crude oil via pipelines. Heavy crude oil/bitumen are fluids with high viscosity, especially at low temperatures. The addition of a diluent enables the diluted fluid (dilbit in the case of bitumen) to meet pipeline specifications in order for it to be efficiently transported. Typical diluent in this case is naphtha or condensate. Types of diluents more familiar to the general public include paint thinner and nail polish thinner, both of which improve the consistency and applica ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Natural-gas Condensate
Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natural gas will condense to a liquid state if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature at a set pressure. The natural gas condensate is also called condensate, or gas condensate, or sometimes natural gasoline because it contains hydrocarbons within the gasoline boiling range, and is also referred to by the shortened name condy by many workers on gas installations. Raw natural gas may come from any one of three types of gas wells: * Crude oil wells: Raw natural gas that comes from crude oil wells is called ''associated gas''. This gas can exist separate from the crude oil in the underground formation, or be dissolved in the crude oil. Condensate produced from oil wells is often referred to as ''lease conde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Synthetic Crude
Synthetic crude is the output from a bitumen/extra heavy oil upgrader facility used in connection with oil sand production. It may also refer to shale oil, an output from an oil shale pyrolysis. The properties of the synthetic crude depend on the processes used in the upgrading. Typically, it is low in sulfur and has an API gravity of around 30. It is also known as "upgraded crude". Synthetic crude is an intermediate product produced when an extra-heavy or unconventional oil source is upgraded into a transportable form. Synthetic crude is then shipped to oil refineries where it is further upgraded into finished products. Synthetic crude may also be mixed, as a diluent, with heavy oil to create synbit. Synbit is more viscous than synthetic crude, but can also be a less expensive alternative for transporting heavy oil to a conventional refinery≠. Syncrude Canada Syncrude Canada Ltd. is one of the world's largest producers of synthetic crude oil from oil sands and the largest s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Natural Gas Condensate
Natural-gas condensate, also called natural gas liquids, is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. Some gas species within the raw natural gas will condense to a liquid state if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature at a set pressure. The natural gas condensate is also called condensate, or gas condensate, or sometimes natural gasoline because it contains hydrocarbons within the gasoline boiling range, and is also referred to by the shortened name condy by many workers on gas installations. Raw natural gas may come from any one of three types of gas wells: * Crude oil wells: Raw natural gas that comes from crude oil wells is called ''associated gas''. This gas can exist separate from the crude oil in the underground formation, or be dissolved in the crude oil. Condensate produced from oil wells is often referred to as ''lease conde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |