Rodney Ridley and Patrick Dougan

Rodney Ridley
Manager, Sensors Engineering Business Unit
Alberta Research Council                     

-and-

Patrick Dougan
Senior Research Associate
Syncrude Canada Ltd.                                    

Alberta’s oil sands supply about one-third of Canada’s oil production, and massive efforts are ongoing to expand this valuable resource. However, barriers still remain to make the extraction process more economical. A key problem is the significant loss of bitumen in the process – six to eight per cent in primary separation and an additional two per cent at the intermediate, froth treatment stage.

Rodney Ridley of the Alberta Research Council’s Sensors Engineering Business Unit and Patrick Dougan, Senior Research Associate with Syncrude Canada Ltd., have collaborated to develop sophisticated online measurement systems that address this problem. Their work has produced several innovative sensor technologies that give  operators the real-time information they need to better control the recovery process and reduce bitumen loss.

An online tailings analyzer developed by Ridley and Dougan continuously monitors bitumen levels in the tailings – waste materials from the extraction process – before they are placed in ponds. This provides operators with an immediate, accurate measurement of overall process efficiency at the extraction plant.

Another innovation, the K40 gamma spectrometer analyzer, measures the clay content in the slurry (created when hot water is added to the oil sand) as it passes through a pipeline to the primary separation plant. The analyzer picks up the tiny amount of gamma radiation emitted by K40, an isotope of potassium, which is contained in clay. While this technology has long been used in down-hole logging systems, Syncrude adapted it for use on a pipeline in the oil sand process with ARC providing improved electronics and computational power.