Heavy Oil Transport - Is It Time to Flowline?

There will be challenges around the movement of oil in the days ahead.  There is, as well, some interesting discussion of the implications of many of the new recovery methods (those discussed as well in other articles on this site) and how they may well facilitate the movement of produced oil.  For example, THAI production may improve viscosity to pipeline standards.  However, R&D must be done to try to make the changes ahead more efficient and both economically and environmentally sustainable.

• Conventional Heavy Oil Production in the Lloydminster Region will soon have to go through major changes.
• We need to figure out what will change in terms of recovery methods
• We need to figure out what facilities/pipelines & R&D will be needed to both respond to and facilitate the changes underway
• Enhanced Oil Recovery methods will drive a move to Pipeline Gathering
• We need to be ready with:

• simple systems
• portable systems
• clustered facilities
• low environmental impact systems
• low fixed capital facilities
• low energy usage
• low operating costs
• fully evaluated systems