Executive Summary
In Canada, approximately 2 billion kg/year of steam are generated for heavy oil production leading to approximately 11% of Canada’s total CO2 emissions coming from burning natural gas to generate the steam required for heavy oil production. Luxmux Technology Corporation and Agar Canada Corporation are jointly commercializing an online steam quality analyser suitable for thermally enhanced heavy oil recovery. Steam quality is a measure of vapor to liquid portion in the steam, the actual “heat” or energy that is desired for production resides in the vapor portion therefore the maximum steam quality is desired to most efficiently produce heavy oil with the least amount of greenhouse gases emitted and water usage. There is a need and a gap in the industry for an online steam quality analyser which will allow producers to operate boilers more efficiently.
The purpose of this project is to demonstrate the performance of the online steam quality analyser using a steam system specifically built for this purpose. The results from this pilot testing will be shared with heavy oil producers to validate the technology before proceeding to field trials at boiler and well sites.