This week, Saskatchewan’s oilpatch became the next step in the evolution of a new technology that has the potential to unlock huge untapped resources of heavy oil around the world while significantly reducing the environmental footprint of heavy oil production, Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. announced.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd joined executives from Petrobank to officially introduce the province’s newest heavy oil operation: Petrobank’s Kerrobert THAI Project.
“The Kerrobert THAI project is the type of sustainable innovation that will help Saskatchewan to continue to move forward,” said Wall. “Petrobank is demonstrating a made-in-Canada solution to heavy oil that we’re proud is happening in our province.”
THAI stands for Toe-to-Heel-Air-Injection and is a revolutionary new process for in situ combustion that uses a two-well pairing of a vertical air injection well and a horizontal production well to extract and partially upgrade heavy oil within the reservoir. Heavy oil remains a major untapped resource, with vast accumulations around the world, and THAI is the leading edge technology to efficiently and economically produce that energy.
In Saskatchewan alone, there is an estimated 20 billion barrels of heavy oil resource which has not been recovered to date using conventional technology. Furthermore, Petrobank says THAI is more environmentally sustainable and efficient than other thermal heavy oil production technologies -- it extracts more of the resource while using practically no natural gas or water in the process.
“From the lab bench to the field, we’ve come to a point with THAI where Saskatchewan could very well be the launching point for similar commercial application the world over,” said Chris Bloomer, COO and senor vice-president Heavy Oil and for Petrobank. “There is a great deal of untapped heavy oil resource in the world and being able to produce it in an environmentally sustainable way is a major step forward for our industry.”
The Kerrobert THAI Project will include two well-pairs that will recover heavy oil from a portion of the extensive Mannville channel conventional heavy oil reservoir. The project is located approximately 16 kilometres southwest of the town of Kerrobert. The Kerrobert lease and project is a joint venture with Baytex Energy Trust which has a 50% working interest.
Kerrobert heralds a new era for fast track heavy oil projects in Canada.
· July 9: Regulatory approval received only 54 working days after filing the application.
· Sept. 7: Drilling and completion operations completed.
· Sept. 8: Plant construction initiated and completed in six weeks.
· Sept. 12: The pre-ignition heating cycle (PIHC) commenced (in the vertical wells only) and Petrobank has now started air injection.
The PIHC performed as expected, allowing the company to achieve the necessary injectivity into the reservoir zone. The horizontal wells have temporary downhole pumps which were turned on at low rates to achieve a slight drawdown pressure across the horizontal well prior to air injection. Air injection has been initiated at a rate less than 10% of designed volumes to establish the in-situ combustion zone.
Petrobank said it expected to begin producing through the plant this week. Once combustion gas is consistently produced from the horizontal well, it will cease pumping and ramp up air injection to allow the wells to flow. Petrobank will then increase air injection rates and oil production volumes are expected to ramp up concurrently.
Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd. is a Calgary-based oil and natural gas exploration and production company with operations in western Canada and Latin America. The company operates high-impact projects through three business units and a technology subsidiary.
The Canadian Business Unit, operated by Petrobank’s 64% owned TSX-listed subsidiary, PetroBakken Energy Ltd., is a premier light oil production company combining high growth, long-life Bakken reserves and production with legacy conventional light oil assets, delivering industry leading operating netbacks, strong cash flows and production growth.
The Latin American Business Unit, operated by Petrobank’s 67% owned TSX-listed subsidiary, Petrominerales Ltd., is a Latin American-based exploration and production company producing oil in Colombia with 16 exploration blocks covering a total of 1.9 million acres in the Llanos and Putumayo Basins of Colombia and 2.6 million acres in the Ucayali Basin of Peru.
Whitesands Insitu Partnership, a partnership between Petrobank and its wholly-owned subsidiary Whitesands Insitu Inc., owns 75 net sections of oilsands leases in Alberta, 36 sections of oilsands licenses in Saskatchewan and operates the Whitesands project which is field-demonstrating Petrobank's patented THAI heavy oil recovery process. THAI is an evolutionary in-situ combustion technology for the recovery of bitumen and heavy oil that integrates existing proven technologies and provides the opportunity to create a step change in the development of heavy oil resources globally.