By Mark Young, senior oil and gas analyst for CanOils and Evaluate Energy

It is no secret that to produce any oil from an oil sands project, you need water, and lots of it.

To create the steam needed to extract oil in oil sands projects, operators mainly recycle water that has already been used in the project over and over again. When this amount of water isn’t sufficient, fresh or brackish, saline water (see notes 1 & 2) is obtained from external sources to make up the shortfall. This water can be taken from surface water sources, such as rivers or lakes, or from underground sources via water wells. CanOils now provides data on how much water from external sources is used by producing oil sands in situ and mining projects each year. For a demonstration of this new data set, click here.

Analyzing this data, we can see that over time, operators in the Alberta oil sands have been getting their water usage from external sources increasingly under control. Total external water use by in situ projects in 2013 was more than double the amount used in 2002, but high recycle ratios have meant this external water usage total has been relatively flat since 2010, whilst bitumen production has continued to rise.

Biggest Water-Using Projects in 2013

Of the in situ projects that are currently producing, it is Canadian Natural Resources’ Primrose/Wolf Lake project that used the most water from external sources in 2013, approximately 146,000 barrels per day (bbl/d). Cenovus Energy’s Foster Creek (68,000 bbl/d), Nexen’s Long Lake (56,000 bbl/d) and Imperial Oil’s Cold Lake (46,000 bbl/d) were also amongst the highest water-using in situ projects in 2013.

image001 Source: The CanOils Oil Sands Database Water Use Efficiency Improving Over Time

In situ projects use a lot of water at startup before production really begins to ramp up. If all in situ projects’ production and external water use are combined, we can see that until production really started to increase in 2009, more external water was always being used compared to bitumen being produced. Recycle ratios within projects have improved markedly since 2009 – most in situ projects now have recycle ratios of over 90% – and the overall requirement to source water from external sources has consequently fallen for each barrel of oil produced.

image002 Source: The CanOils Oil Sands Database

A Project in Focus: Foster Creek, Cenovus Energy

One project that has improved its efficiency, in terms of external water use, is Cenovus Energy’s 120,000 bbl/d Foster Creek project. In 2002, the project was only one year into its producing life, and was using over two barrels of water for every barrel of bitumen it produced. Now, 12 years later with a recycle ratio of around 100%, the project only needs to source 0.6 barrels of external water to produce a barrel of bitumen.

image003 Source: The CanOils Oil Sands Database

Fresh Water Use Falling

As well as this increasing efficiency in terms of external water use, it is also important to note that Foster Creek is now using much less fresh water than when it first started producing. From the above graph, we can see that the project is using almost three times as much water in 2013 than in 2002, but this is almost all made up of brackish saline water (see note 2). Fresh water use has in fact been reduced to just 5,000 bbl/d, or 7%, of the total water used in the project.

image004 Source: The CanOils Oil Sands Database

This is a trend that can again be seen across the board for in situ oil sands projects. Brackish water use has increased at a much higher rate than the use of fresh water. In 2002, nearly all external water used by in situ oil sands projects was fresh water, whereas in 2013, brackish water makes up almost 42% of the total external water used.

image005 Source: The CanOils Oil Sands Database

An important project to note here is Jackfish, operated by Devon Energy. This project started producing in 2007 and is the only producing oil sands in situ project to have never used fresh water in its operations.

So not only are in situ operators improving the efficiency with which they use water from external sources in bitumen production, they are also becoming less and less reliant on fresh water sources, and using more and more brackish water when available that would not otherwise be suitable for human or agricultural use (see note 3).

This report was created using new data now available in Canoils’ Oilsands product. CanOils now provides annual fresh and brackish water usage statistics for seven producing oil sands mining projects and 24 producing in situ projects. This data complements the already available recycle, steam/oil and water/oil ratios, giving Oilsands subscribers a comprehensive picture of water use in the Alberta Oil Sands industry. To request a demonstration of the CanOils Oilsands product, please click here.

Notes:

1) Fresh water is either non-saline groundwater, which is groundwater that has total dissolved solids less than or equal to 4000 milligrams per liter, or surface water, which is as defined in Section 1(1)(bb) of the Alberta Water (Ministerial) Regulation as “all water on the ground surface, whether in liquid or solid state.”

2) Brackish water is saline groundwater as defined in section 1(1)(z) of the Alberta Water (Ministerial) Regulation as “water that has total dissolved solids exceeding 4000 milligrams per liter.” Such groundwater is defined as “brackish water” in PETRINEX and “saline groundwater” by Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development. Brackish water cannot be used in oil-sands mining operations.

3) Most fresh water used in oil-sands operations is not immediately suitable for drinking or agricultural use either. It requires treatment after being extracted from deep underground sources.

4) All water usage data available in CanOils is sourced from Alberta Environment.