Heavy Oil & Oilsands Upgrading
Alberta's oilsands deposits contain one third of the known oil reserves in the world. Bantrel has been at the forefront of oilsands projects for over 40 years. Our majority shareholder Bechtel executed projects for the Great Canadian Oil Sands Company, now known as Suncor Energy, in the early 1960s.
Design of upgraders for reliable service in the harsh Canadian climate requires specific design and execution considerations. Failure to adequately address these can result in unplanned outages and loss of operations revenue. Bantrel’s cold climate upgrader design expertise has been thoroughly tested by decades of reliable operations in Fort McMurray.
Our advantage is our in-depth experience with EOR heavy oil and both mined and in-situ SAGD oilsands bitumen processed by Athabasca oilsands upgraders. This includes the varying grades of synthetic crudes and synbit product blends produced from these upgrading complexes.
Bantrel has also been active in upstream in-situ SAGD bitumen recovery and production facilities including co-generation. This experience and expertise strengthens our ability to identify best-fit integration opportunities between upstream oilsands production and downstream upgrading facilities.
Our expertise in both mature and developing upgrading technologies enables us to expeditiously examine and screen a broad range of technologies and processing configurations. Our technical and economic knowledge serves to facilitate a rigorous analysis of key value drivers, uncertainties, and risks that can influence project development economics and viability.
In addition, Bantrel has resident expertise and experience with both licensed and non-licensed technologies typically associated with crude oil refining and bitumen upgrading facilities. We are proud of our ongoing relationships with the major licensors of technology. This means we either have, or can very quickly put in place, the requisite non-disclosure agreements for the execution of work—from front-end conceptual studies through all subsequent stages of project DBM, FEED, EPC and EPCM.
Learn more about oilsands upgrading: From Bitumen to Fuel
See our Recent Upgrader Design Experience