Ivanhoe Energy, an independent heavy oil development and production company, has commissioned the new feedstock test facility for the company’s proprietary technology for field upgrading of heavy oil to light oil.
According to the company, the heavy oil-to-light oil (HTL) testing facility will be used by Ivanhoe Energy in coming years to support engineering and design of HTL plants for Ivanhoe Energy’s Tamarack Project in Alberta, Canada, and Pungarayacu Project in Ecuador, and to test crudes associated with additional potential HTL projects.
The feedstock test facility (FTF) was installed at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas, December 2008. SwRI is a technology center that operates testing facilities for many oil companies, as well as other technology-intensive organizations such as NASA, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense, claims the company.
It said that the FTF will supplant the 1,000 bpd Commercial Demonstration Facility (CDF) in Bakersfield, California, which has served its primary mission of proving that the HTL process can be scaled up to a commercial size. The FTF processes whole, heavy crude oils with API’s 6. The unit has atmospheric and vacuum distillation columns, a reaction section, and the capability of
recycling of unconverted bottoms to create bottomless, synthetic sour-crude product.
