| Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) bitumen production reaches a point where the steam/oil ratio becomes uneconomical. Noticeable hydrocarbon resources are still locked within the reservoir when this point is reached.;Results showed a slight upgrading of the produced oil was achieved in a short residence time/low temperature SAGD laboratory process. Hydrogen was selectively produced by gasification in the temperature range 550--600°C. Estimated 86%wt. conversion was determined for gasification, based on the amount of non-gasified hydrocarbons remaining in the core.;For this study an Athabasca core was selected. A first objective was to assemble a laboratory set-up that simulates field SAGD hydrocarbon depletion. In this way, a hydrocarbon depleted core was produced for the next step of the investigation. The second and more important objective aims to demonstrate the feasibility of producing Hydrogen from the SAGD remaining hydrocarbons. To this end, Catalytic Steam Gasification was studied. An euthectic Ca/K catalyst was evaluated. |
