Petrobank Energy Awards Engineering Contract, Proceeds with Permitting for Oil Sands Project

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Petrobank Energy and Resources Limited (Calgary, Alberta) is proceeding with government permitting for its May River project to be located on its Whitesands oil sands property. Petrobank has completed a $30 million pilot plant to test its new in-situ technology called Toe-to-Heal-Air-Injection (THAI). THAI technology integrates existing proven technologies that pair up a single horizontal production well with a single vertical air injection well. Once in place, an underground combustion front is created where a portion of the resource is burned to generate high-temperature heat, which in turn reduces the viscosity of the oil from the toe to the heal of the horizontal production well.

Now that Petrobank has completed the pilot-testing portion on its Whitesands property, it has announced plans to construct a commercial-size production development. Petrobank plans to construct a multi-phase development that could produce as much as 100,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) by 2015. The multiple phases would each have a capacity of either 15,000 BBL/d or 35,000 BBL/d. Construction on the phases would run concurrent with each new phase beginning construction as the previous phase comes on line.

Petrobank expects its capital costs per barrel of production to be lower than other thermal-based technologies, such as SAGD because of its lower dependency on natural gas and water. In turn, Petrobank will be more insulated from the price swings of natural gas and availability of water that can hamper more conventional SAGD bitumen production projects.

Petrobank has awarded several engineering contracts to Tartan Engineering located in Calgary. Petrobank expects to complete the permitting process within the next 14-18 months. Construction on the multi-phase project is expected to begin in late 2009 with the final phases coming on line in the 2015-17 time frame.

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