RAIN DAY

Last Friday (August 30th) it started raining hard in the early hours just after midnight and the rain was still coming down in the morning when it was time to go to work. A rain day was declared. We cannot work when there is too much rain because of all the mud and slippery conditions. We would accomplish nothing and it would also be unsafe. Ben and I decided to make the two hour trip to visit Fort McMurray. We needed to purchase a few items and Ben wanted to get an oil change for his truck. We also wanted to visit the "Oil Sands Discovery Center".

Wall-mart provided the items we needed to purchase, oil changes were booking for September 17th so that did not happen, so after lunch we made our way to the Discovery Center to discover what the oil sands are, how they have been recovered and processed over the years, and what new technologies are being used today.

Tar sands are individual grains of sand, each coated with tar, packed together in a large deposit. At first both the sand and the tar were extracted by excavation for separation. That is still done today where the sand is close to the surface North of Fort McMurray. At first drag lines were used and then a rotating wheel of buckets at the end of a boom, and today large, very large trucks, are used.

Ben standing beside a drag line bucket

Standing by the front wheel of an excavation truck and its motor

Front of a large excavation truck

Only 10% of the volume of sand extracted is oil. In the early days the sand was excavated and transported to Edmonton for processing. That was a lot of extra bulk to carry such a long distance. Today the extraction process is done near the excavation.
A better process would be to extract the oil and leave the sand in the ground. That it the technology that is being developed today. Steam is forced into the tar sand through a pipe which causes the tar to become liquid and drain away from the sand particle by gravity. A second pipe at a lower level than the steam line sucks the liquid oil to the surface. This is called "Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage" (SAGD). The oil leases we are working on use this technology so oil wells are only about 20 feet apart because the steam has a limited heating range.

Ben and I had a very interesting and good day together. We drove back to camp in the pounding rain and upon our arrival there received a special surprise. I will tell you all about that next time.