Don't know why the gondola car idea wouldn't work. The Uintah Rwy. apparently used to ship its Gilsonite in sacks on flat cars - see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilsonite
http://www.abandonedrails.com/Uintah_Railway
http://www.amazon.com/Uintah-Railway-The-Gilsonite-Route/dp/0911581367
http://bpratt15.home.bresnan.net/a_longer_history.htm
- Paul North.
Paul, Gilsonite is a solid, where as bitumen is more liquid than solid. They aren't really the same thing.
Tatans, I fear you are confusing synthetic crude with bitumen. Bitumen does not resemble most of the descriptions you listed. While it does have different viscosities depending on it's makeup, it is still very heavy and tar like. Synthetic crude, however, does meet some of the descriptions you listed as well. Just to clarify though, no bitumen is the consistency of sand.
Euclid, I'm sorry, but I have no intention of giving a lesson on the use of diluents. It's a far too in depth field to try and explain in the detail you seem to want. I think Fred has misunderstood the whole situation involving diluents, as he seems to believe they are a one use product, that isn't necessary for the processing of the bitumen. This simply isn't the case.
Something else to consider, is that only one of the large operations doesn't upgrade their own bitumen to oil. One other operation has their own upgrader that is located remotely, but they still do their own upgrading. Most of the raw bitumen shipped, comes from small operations, and is either sent to local upgraders for processing before being shipped as synthetic crude. Or it's hauled in it's diluted state to either a pipeline terminal, or a railhead. There is no rail connection to any of these plants, so handling it in a non diluted state would complicate things greatly, adding to costs. The small operations wouldn't have a large enough production capacity to justify the costs involved in building facilities to recover the diluent. And extending the rail lines to the plant sites is just not an economically feasible option.
Like I said, every time you add a step to the process, you add costs. To add the diluent for initial processing, then remove it for shipping, then add it again for further processing, then remove it again, adds more cost than most would be willing to bear.
It's a nice thought, but it doesn't seem to add any value to the whole system. Only create more handling, and more work and cost.
I have not worked with bitumen, but I am familiar with crude oil enough to see what Greasemonkey is saying, and that he knows what he is talking about. Also, I can see another problem that would make a covered tub car problematic. Any petroleum will have some volatility, and to control vapors coming off the product, the car would not only need to be air-tight, but would have to hold at least some slight pressure. This is easily done with a tank car hatch, but not so easy with a tub car lid. Otherwise the load would degrade on the days long trip to the refinery.
I think all the problems with sealed gondolas can be solved, and the idea can be reserved for one petroleum application: Cases where petroleum MUST be shipped over line where there is opposition to the use of tankcars, and the shipment of petroleum must be disguised.
Other than that, Euclid's "cupcake technique" should have applicability to other shipments that leave residue sticking to the car interiors. The idea is tha the lining should be made of something that works as a lining, and is still similar enough to the product being shipped that disolving it into the product does not contaminate the product.i
Greasemonkey,
So, as I understand it, you are saying that diluent is not added to bitumen for the exclusive purpose of making it flowable for the purpose of transportation by pipeline or rail. There is another purpose for adding, which is to make it flowable for plant processing. Therefore, diluent has to be added to bitumen for plant processing even if it were not transported to another location by rail or pipeline.
And, as I understand it, you are saying that heating bitumen alone without the addition of diluent will not make it sufficiently flowable for pumping it into or out of tank cars; or make it sufficiently flowable for plant processing.
Therefore, if you eliminated the need for adding diluent for the purpose of transportation, it would still be needed to be added for the purpose of plant processing. And once that processing is finished, the diluent is no longer needed, so it is recovered and re-introduced to the new stock of bitumen.
Is that information all correct?
If so, it would follow that there would be no advantage in shipping bitumen in a way that does not require diluent.
To continue from the preceding set of fact statements (assuming they are true) it follows that the use of diluent does not add any cost to the transportation of bitumen from the mine to the refinery. Therefore, there can be no cost advantage of rail over pipeline because rail might requires less diluent than a pipeline.
Euclid To continue from the preceding set of fact statements (assuming they are true) it follows that the use of diluent does not add any cost to the transportation of bitumen from the mine to the refinery. Therefore, there can be no cost advantage of rail over pipeline because rail might requires less diluent than a pipeline.
Pipeline certainly beats rail for the shipping of most liquid or semi liquid commodities but, like crude oil, the current lack of pipeline capacity is the reason semi-processed tar sands derived bitumen may well be a significant rail commodity in the near future.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
That is my general unerstanding as well, but on Fred Frailey's blog, I understood he and others to be saying that rail shipping may end up being cheaper than pipeline because it requires less diluent, and therefore, less handling to return diluent to its origin.
If I undstood them, they were saying that rail may evenutally be the lowest cost method because, with a new type of unloading facility, bitumen can be shipped by rail without any diluent being used. Whereas a pipeline will require the use of diluent.
All of that seems to conflict with what has been said about the use of diluent in this thread.
I agree. There does appear to be a contradiction.
Euclid That is my general understanding as well, but on Fred Frailey's blog, I understood he and others to be saying that rail shipping may end up being cheaper than pipeline because it requires less diluent, and therefore, less handling to return diluent to its origin. If I understood them, they were saying that rail may evenutally be the lowest cost method because, with a new type of unloading facility, bitumen can be shipped by rail without any diluent being used. Whereas a pipeline will require the use of diluent. All of that seems to conflict with what has been said about the use of diluent in this thread.
That is my general understanding as well, but on Fred Frailey's blog, I understood he and others to be saying that rail shipping may end up being cheaper than pipeline because it requires less diluent, and therefore, less handling to return diluent to its origin.
If I understood them, they were saying that rail may evenutally be the lowest cost method because, with a new type of unloading facility, bitumen can be shipped by rail without any diluent being used. Whereas a pipeline will require the use of diluent.
I think greasemonkey may need to add some backgrounding on pipeline operations to help answer this, but there are a couple of things to note here:
Most pipelines aren't dedicated to 'just one product'; they carry slugs of material separated by 'pigs' or other methods. Presumably the viscosity involved in these different slugs has to be within a common general range, and the materials can't preferentially stick to the pumps and valves, etc.
Bitumen of a viscosity that is easily handled in tank cars, particularly those with steam-heat coils, may not be optimal or even suitable for pipeline use. Therefore a comment that 'more diluent' is necessary for pipelining is not a contradiction in my opinion, at least.
It follows that, if all the economics of providing, utilizing, and 'recycling' the diluent are included, there will be a fairly clear point at which the net cost of transporting 'dilbit' in TANK CARS will be less than either providing a compatible pipeline or arranging to slug further-diluted dilbit in a general pipeline infrastructure. This is not quite the same situation as for ethanol trains (where the material is inherently unsuited to share a pipeline infrastructure) but similar enough that no one here should have any difficulty with the situation involved.
The original idea, of transporting either 'hard' bitumen, or viscous enough that it would flow more like pitch than the 'dilbit' in tank cars, has substantial practical drawbacks, some of which (like the particulate contamination) are not amenable to technological solution *more cost-effectively than cycling an appropriate flow of diluent*. That is, unless I am missing something significant about refinery operations, and I think I am not. That's a bit of a shame, because continuous rotary dumping of gooey black stuff could be highly interesting to watch!
greasemonkey: I was very confused on my description, I got ahead of myself, bitumen is a very coarse sandy-like tar like material, fine asphalt would describe it, it is refined on site to varying viscosities and sent to refineries for more refinement, bitumen extracted on site is never sent great distances for any type of refinement as it makes no sense, ever wonder what happens to the sand that is exracted from the bitumen? want to see a huge white desert? fly over the project, and remember, most of the tar sands (in situ) are in Saskatchewan, not in Alberta.
Here's the ad that came up in my email with the latest installment of this thread:
Johnny
tatans greasemonkey: I was very confused on my description, I got ahead of myself, bitumen is a very coarse sandy-like tar like material, fine asphalt would describe it, it is refined on site to varying viscosities and sent to refineries for more refinement, bitumen extracted on site is never sent great distances for any type of refinement as it makes no sense, ever wonder what happens to the sand that is exracted from the bitumen? want to see a huge white desert? fly over the project, and remember, most of the tar sands (in situ) are in Saskatchewan, not in Alberta.
Tatans, just to clarify, it is not correct to say that bitumen is a very coarse sandy-like tar like material as you suggest. Oil sand is what you are describing. Bitumen is one component of the oil sand, but oil sand is not bitumen. To add to that, the bitumen is not refined, it is upgraded. Simply put, the bitumen is processed to remove excess coke and sulphur, which is called upgrading. Refining is separating the material into different products such as gasoline, diesel, etc, etc. That is not really any issue here, just clarifying what you said.
I, in fact, do not wonder what happens to the sand removed from the oil sand during processing. I live and work in Fort McMurray, in one of these facilities, and am very familiar with the processes involved.
On another note, the deposits in Saskatchewan have the potential to hold more oil that the sands deposits in Alberta. But seeing as how they have not yet fully defined the Sask deposits, it's not a sure thing yet. As the resource is further explored and defined, it will no doubt grow, and quite possibly become recognized as a larger resource than the deposits in Alberta.
That is precisely what I have been trying to say Euclid. The only thing I am going to say differently, is that it's not true that the use of diluent does not add to the cost of shipping the bitumen from it's source to the refinery. It will definitely add cost, as you are having to ship more product, since adding the diluent, will add to the volume being shipped. However, the costs added, are not likely to exceed the costs of the extra handling and special treatment that would be required to ship the bitumen in an undiluted state (factoring in the removal, and then reintroduction of the diluent at each end).
Just to add to the whole idea, when the original pilot plants were operated to develop the process and investigate the viability of extracting oil from the sands, all of the bitumen was shipped dry, undiluted. This proved to be very impractical, though to be fair, it was all shipped in barrels, since it was pretty much the only way to handle it with the technology of the day.
It's quite possible that rail could end up being the cheaper method as techniques develop versus using pipelines. The less infrastructure that is needed to build and maintain, the less the overall cost is going to be. I'm not disputing that in any way. My only argument comes with the idea of dry shipping the bitumen, as the work required on both ends would be substantial, and quite expensive,to be able to do it.
I think one thing needs to be clarified though. I think it's important to note that, bitumen shipped by rail, would not require any ADDITIONAL diluent to be added (over and above the amount used in processing), where pipeline transport would.
Overmod Euclid That is my general understanding as well, but on Fred Frailey's blog, I understood he and others to be saying that rail shipping may end up being cheaper than pipeline because it requires less diluent, and therefore, less handling to return diluent to its origin. If I understood them, they were saying that rail may evenutally be the lowest cost method because, with a new type of unloading facility, bitumen can be shipped by rail without any diluent being used. Whereas a pipeline will require the use of diluent. All of that seems to conflict with what has been said about the use of diluent in this thread. Bitumen of a viscosity that is easily handled in tank cars, particularly those with steam-heat coils, may not be optimal or even suitable for pipeline use. Therefore a comment that 'more diluent' is necessary for pipelining is not a contradiction in my opinion, at least.
The contradiction that I referred to was based on my understanding that diluent was needed for processing, and for transport, so nothing is gained by a new method of transport that requires less diluent or none at all.
That was my conclusion based on Greasmonkey saying this:
“Yes, Fred is partially correct in that diluent is a cost. Adding any product, to any other product will incur a cost. However, what Fred apparently fails to mention, is that the diluent is necessary for processing the bitumen into upgraded synthetic crude oil. Heating the bitumen alone, will not get it to a state that renders the material pumpable, which it must be to go through the upgrading process.”
Now, as I understand the latest explanations, pipelines require more diulent than is needed for processing and rail does not.
Okay, so overall, as I understand it: You need X amount of diluent added to bitumen for processing. Shipping by rail needs X amount or less to handle in tank cars. So there is no cost benefit in reducing the amount of diluent used for rail shipping below X amount because that amount is needed for the processing anyway.
However shipping by pipeline requires X + Y amount, or more than what is needed for processing. So rail shipping may be lower cost than pipeline because it does not require a quantity of diluent greater than what is necessary for processing. Whereas a pipeline does require a quantity of diluent greater than what is necessary for processing.
Although, I suppose there are a variety of other pricing tradeoffs between rail and pipeline, such as time for shipping, investment cost, labor, etc.
But if this is all true, it does conflict with what has been said in Fred’s blog about rail reducing the cost of transportation by eliminating the need for diluent for rail shipping. That cannot be true according to the information given here.
daveklepper I think all the problems with sealed gondolas can be solved, and the idea can be reserved for one petroleum application: Cases where petroleum MUST be shipped over line where there is opposition to the use of tankcars, and the shipment of petroleum must be disguised. Other than that, Euclid's "cupcake technique" should have applicability to other shipments that leave residue sticking to the car interiors. The idea is tha the lining should be made of something that works as a lining, and is still similar enough to the product being shipped that disolving it into the product does not contaminate the product.i
In most tank car derailments the tanks don't leak, whereas with a sealed gondola, any big derailment is going to brake or pop the seal and spill the contents. People are not so gullible that they won't see past the gondola "disguise", especially after a few spills.
I have a lot of experience with oil field HDPE liners, and they become a disposal headache. They have to go to a proper landfill, and they are not accepted oozing oil. They must be solidified with soil, kiln dust or similar.
What material is used for HOPE liners? Could it be replace by Teflon, which cojld simply be melted into the oil, since it is a pure Hyhdrocarbon product?
The points you raise concerning oil transport are well-taken, and only my comment concerning other "sticky" freight is valid.
Dave, Teflon is not a pure hydrocarbon; it has fluorine in it. Teflon's advantage is that it resists many things, including hydrofluoric acid. When it is continually exposed to hydrogen fluoride, it eventually is worn away, but it is used to protect the workings of a pump that moves hydrogen fluoride. It is cheaper to recoat with Teflon than to replace the complete pump. I write from experience.
I don’t know what the liner material should be. I doubt Teflon would be the answer. The liner does not need to be an extremely slippery, releasable material. It just needs to be impermeable, so the liquid of the bitumen does not contact the car interior. Something like HDPE would be fine. It might be fairly thick such as 20 mil.
The key would be to install that liner and load the car in a controlled, automated way that is fast and precise. The precision would avoid dislodging or tearing the liner. The liner would be either molded or fabricated to a shape that exactly fits the car interior. So it would be seamless and inserted into the car pre-shaped to the car interior.
The other half of the idea would be how to separate the liner from the load after unloading. This is for the people who study molecules. But for all the combining and separating of compounds done in the refining process, I cannot believe that separating this liner from the bitumen would stump the experts.
It has been established in this thread that at both ends of the haul, the bitumen must be liquid, so a gondola would not have an advantage over a tank car. It has been suggested that a side dump car would have a time advantage over tank car unloading. Greasemonkey, who apparently is the only poster who has had actual experience with bitumen, suggests that it would not dump that quickly. Unit train tank car unloading facilities don't unload one car at a time. They unload 10 or sometimes many more at once. Even if the spotting and unloading of a side dump car is relative quick, unless it is 10x quicker, there is no time advantage. A gondola would have to have a significant advantage to overcome the inherent problems of sealing the lid against vapor pressure loss and securing against spillage in a derailment.
Well, I was thinking that a tank car alternative might offer an advantage in two areas:
1) It might save time and money in the unloading.
2) It might save cost by reducing or eliminating the use of diluent.
Greasemonkey says item #2 is not possible because diluent is needed to thin the bitumen for processing at both ends of the transportation cycle, so there is nothing to be gained by removing it during the transportation cycle.
In his blog, Fred Fraily said this:
"Midland Mike and others, you persist in saying that tank cars with coiled steam fittings inside still need to be diluted for bitumen to be transported. That is not necessarily correct. The steam heat permits pure bitumen to be transported in these tank cars, IF proper loading and unloading facilities are in place at the start and finish. Very few such terminals exist today, but plenty are being built. According to RBN Energy, such cars in unit train service can get bitumen from Northern Alberta to the Gulf Coast markedly cheaper than a pipeline can. If you do not have the right loading and unloading facilities, then, yes, you do need to dilute the bitumen somewhat (but much less than with a pipeline) to get the bitumen in and out of the tank car, even with steam applied."
He is clearly talking about reducing the cost of rail transport versus pipeline by using less diluent or no diluent at all. He says this might ultimately make rail the cheapest form of transportation.
Yet, Greasmonkey indicates that Fred's point on this is moot because nothing can be gained by shipping without diluent. Who is right; Fred or Greasemonkey?
Euclid, let me preface my reply by saying I mildly protested to Fred about putting me in the dilutent-in-coil-cars group, and in later posts he seems to have accepted my explanation.
Greasemonkey works in the Alberta oil fields, and I see no reason to dispute him when he says they need dilutent through out their process stream. He also mentions they can use a reclaimer unit to remove the dilutent. Apparently this is what is done at the few bitumen loading facilities. I don't recall exactly what GM said about dilutent in tank cars, but it sounds like he was expressing an opinion, whereas Fred is more the expert on rail transportation. I also remember the RBN oil industry blog talking about raw bitumen rail transport. At the refinery side, they could steam the bitumen out of the cars, store it in insulated tanks if necessary, and send it to their processor. Whether or not they use dilutent at the refinery seems besides the point. In my previous post I used the term liquefy instead of getting into steam vs dilutent. It seems intuitive that shipping raw bitumen would be cheaper than shipping railbit with the extra weight of the dilutent. Knowing the viscosity and odd properties of bitumen, I don't think that the quickness of the drop side unloading of it has been established, with or without a liner.
MidlandMikeIn my previous post I used the term liquefy instead of getting into steam vs dilutent. It seems intuitive that shipping raw bitumen would be cheaper than shipping railbit with the extra weight of the dilutent.
Why not use the common-sense terms 'melt' (for physically liquefying solid or semisolid bitumen, e.g. with steam coils) vs 'dissolve' (for using a chemical or physical diluent to reduce viscosity, etc.)?
What is 'intuitive' is that less weight and less volume has to be shipped if the bitumen can be melted instead of 'diluted down'. What is NOT intuitive is that the bottom-line, net cost of the operation will also be lower, particularly if there is any process difficulty in mixing the hot bitumen steamed out of a car with the process diluent -- I would expect this to be fraught with a number of headaches. That may or may not include the provision of adequate process steam for car unloading at a facility that has been processing dilbit.
I've been proceeding on the assumption that bitumen is much the same thing as 'pitch'. Anyone who has experienced the peculiar characteristics of the latter material over the 'normal' range of ambient environmental temperature will not say much more about shipping it as if it breaks into neat little pieces like coal and stays that way, or that it will easily disengage from surfaces inside a railcar even if heated.
MidlandMike Euclid, let me preface my reply by saying I mildly protested to Fred about putting me in the dilutent-in-coil-cars group, and in later posts he seems to have accepted my explanation. Greasemonkey works in the Alberta oil fields, and I see no reason to dispute him when he says they need dilutent through out their process stream. He also mentions they can use a reclaimer unit to remove the dilutent. Apparently this is what is done at the few bitumen loading facilities. I don't recall exactly what GM said about dilutent in tank cars, but it sounds like he was expressing an opinion, whereas Fred is more the expert on rail transportation. I also remember the RBN oil industry blog talking about raw bitumen rail transport. At the refinery side, they could steam the bitumen out of the cars, store it in insulated tanks if necessary, and send it to their processor. Whether or not they use dilutent at the refinery seems besides the point. In my previous post I used the term liquefy instead of getting into steam vs dilutent. It seems intuitive that shipping raw bitumen would be cheaper than shipping railbit with the extra weight of the dilutent. Knowing the viscosity and odd properties of bitumen, I don't think that the quickness of the drop side unloading of it has been established, with or without a liner.
I proposed rail shipping without diluent in order to save money. So did Fred. I would accomplish it by the use of special cars. Fred says it will be accomplished by a special unloading system for tank cars.
Greasmoney says my idea for special cars is pointless because diluent needs to be in the load before and after the rail trip. So nothing can be saved by eliminating it from the rail trip. In fact he says removing it for the rail trip would actually add cost because it would have to be reintroduced after the rail trip.
These same diluent logistics would apply to Fred’s suggestion that a special unloading system would save money by eliminating the need for diluent in the rail shipment. It would not save money because the diluent is needed before and after the rail trip. So, if I am wrong as Greasmonkey says, then so is Fred for the same reason.
But I have read on this forum and other places in the Internet, so many mixed up, convoluted explanations of the nature of bitumen and the logistics of diluent that I cannot come to any conclusion as to who is right and who is wrong.
But particularly, I am not convinced that diluent is needed in the bitumen after arriving at the refinery. I have seen considerable reference to a need to add diluent only for pipeline or tank car shipping and not for a need for diluent to enable refinery processing.
Regarding my idea for new type of rail car, that would not be a side dump car. It would be an open top car rotated for dumping. I have no idea how long it would take to dump, but I would expect it to not take more than one second. But then again, maybe there is no advantage to a speeded up dumping action.
Overmod MidlandMikeIn my previous post I used the term liquefy instead of getting into steam vs dilutent. It seems intuitive that shipping raw bitumen would be cheaper than shipping railbit with the extra weight of the dilutent. Why not use the common-sense terms 'melt' (for physically liquefying solid or semisolid bitumen, e.g. with steam coils) vs 'dissolve' (for using a chemical or physical diluent to reduce viscosity, etc.)? What is 'intuitive' is that less weight and less volume has to be shipped if the bitumen can be melted instead of 'diluted down'. What is NOT intuitive is that the bottom-line, net cost of the operation will also be lower, particularly if there is any process difficulty in mixing the hot bitumen steamed out of a car with the process diluent -- I would expect this to be fraught with a number of headaches. That may or may not include the provision of adequate process steam for car unloading at a facility that has been processing dilbit. I've been proceeding on the assumption that bitumen is much the same thing as 'pitch'. Anyone who has experienced the peculiar characteristics of the latter material over the 'normal' range of ambient environmental temperature will not say much more about shipping it as if it breaks into neat little pieces like coal and stays that way, or that it will easily disengage from surfaces inside a railcar even if heated.
Oil company refinery sites that I have looked at, say they store bitumen in steam heated or otherwise heated tanks, so they are already equipped to handle it.
Solid petroleum pitch has a high softening point, above 300 deg F. Canada (from oil sand) bitumen is reportedly somewhat gooey at normal ambient temp, and IIRC is liquid at 200 deg F.
Euclid, while I agree with Greasemonkey on the oil sand production side, I agree with Fred, other oil industry people and (I presume) you, that rail transport of raw bitumen makes sense. On the final refinery side I am also not convinced that dilutent is needed in the bitumen after arriving there, but I have not found anything to confirm it.
Somebody mentioned a hinged lid, so that is why I thought we were still talking about a side dump car. In any case, sealing/securing the lid against vapor pressure loss and accident spill is a monumental undertaking that most posters don't seem to grasp.
Edit: regarding dilutent logistics, while I was looking at the Kinder Morgan website, I saw that they wanted to reverse the direction on a product pipeline from Alberta to Illinois, to bring condensate back to Alberta. Condensate is the typical dilutent.
I think both Euclid and I are pretty convinced that the gondola with lid approach is out. But rail transportatoin with tank-cars is a two-way proposition, whereas a pipeline can only go one way, so the Kinder-Morgan situation seems a natural for rail!
If strong containers could be manufacured economically completely from oil products, hold raw bitumin, then be heat sealed air-tight with strong covers of the same material, be of a size to fit conveniently on a fork-lift truck of adequate capacity, and capable of being stacked and filling the full space of a standard container, then there would be an alternative to tankcars. The unit trains would return with the new empty containers, and the full containers would simply merge into crude. But this idea is new technology, and I don't expect it, even if possible.
I left a word, perhaps an important word, out of my previous post, relating to the similarity between pitch and bitumen. I was thinking of a similarity of physical characteristics, not equating pitch and bitumen directly...
Euclid I proposed rail shipping without diluent in order to save money. So did Fred. I would accomplish it by the use of special cars. Fred says it will be accomplished by a special unloading system for tank cars. Greasemonkey says my idea for special cars is pointless because diluent needs to be in the load before and after the rail trip. So nothing can be saved by eliminating it from the rail trip. In fact he says removing it for the rail trip would actually add cost because it would have to be reintroduced after the rail trip. These same diluent logistics would apply to Fred’s suggestion that a special unloading system would save money by eliminating the need for diluent in the rail shipment. It would not save money because the diluent is needed before and after the rail trip. So, if I am wrong as Greasemonkey says, then so is Fred for the same reason.
Greasemonkey says my idea for special cars is pointless because diluent needs to be in the load before and after the rail trip. So nothing can be saved by eliminating it from the rail trip. In fact he says removing it for the rail trip would actually add cost because it would have to be reintroduced after the rail trip.
These same diluent logistics would apply to Fred’s suggestion that a special unloading system would save money by eliminating the need for diluent in the rail shipment. It would not save money because the diluent is needed before and after the rail trip. So, if I am wrong as Greasemonkey says, then so is Fred for the same reason.
And the irony here is that the 'answer' is exactly the one that people have been using to mock Euclid's 'safe oil train': If there is an advantage to shipping 'meltbit' instead of dilbit, at least some shippers will take it up. On merit. Because it increases their profits, or otherwise facilitates operations above what the current diluent-based transport system does. Seems to me that any further discussion of this issue other than to make that point is either 'preaching to the choir' or 'shouting in the wilderness' as far as actual implementation of the ideas is concerned.
I do find it a bit strange that people think the entire sequence of operations to process bitumen into something profitable can be done entirely with the substance melted to a liquid. But I am not a petroleum engineer, so will leave that discussion to those who are involved in doing it. I'd suspect, though, that most of the processes involved require a feedstock with better flow and surface-adhesion characteristics than melted bitumen... or one which involves solution in a lighter fraction (like the gas condensate mentioned); perhaps this is even true of a facility that is intended to process solely bitumen as a feedstock.
I suggested an idea of a better way of rail shipping bitumen, based on the premise that shipping raw bitumen by rail would save money by avoiding the following:
1) The cost of adding and removing diluent.
2) The cost of shipping the added weight of the diluent.
3) The cost of return shipping the diluent back to the origin for a new shipping cycle.
The logistics of this is based on what I have read and what Fred Frailey has said in his blog, and (I assume) in his recent article in Trains magazine.
Rail tank cars require less diluent than a pipeline, if the bitumen is heated in order to get it to flow out of a tank car. My suggestion involves the use of a special railcar and unloading process that does not require heating the raw bitumen to get it out of a tank car. Therefore, this process avoids the costs associated with diluent; and it speeds up the unloading process. I do not know if speeding up the unloading process saves money. Much of that process is the time and money spent to heat the bitumen, and even when unloaded more quickly, the bitumen still needs to heated for refinery processing.
However, according to posts by Greasemonkey, my idea for special cars is pointless because diluent needs to be in the load before and after the rail trip. So nothing can be saved by eliminating it from the rail trip. In fact he says removing it for the rail trip would actually add cost because it would have to be reintroduced after the rail trip.
I believe that this information from Greasemonkey is incorrect because it conflicts with many references that I have read, including the information from Fred Frailey. For example, here is a reference that supports my understanding of the advantage of rail shipping without diluent, and clearly refutes the information from Greasemonky:
From the linked article:
“Moving to pure bitumen by rail if pipelines are constrainedPure bitumen rail movements today are not happening because the necessary infrastructure for shipping pure bitumen does not exist. Moving pure bitumen requires specialized equipment in Alberta, such as heated tanks connected by heated pipelines, modifications to rail on-loading facilities, heated rail cars, and units for removing diluent (diluent is added to the bitumen in the extraction and processing steps, this needs to be removed before shipping pure bitumen). In the USGC specialized rail off-loading facilities are also needed. The advantage today of moving dilbit, rather than pure bitumen, by rail is that it does not require as much unique rail infrastructure as pure bitumen. However, by moving dilbit by railcar producers are making part of the investment needed for supporting pure bitumen movements.
The rationale, so far, for not investing in the pure bitumen transport option is that most oil sands producers are assuming that sufficient pipeline capacity will become available in a few years. In order to receive a payback on building pure bitumen railing infrastructure, producers must anticipate its use over a longer time frame—perhaps five years. However, if producers anticipate that new pipeline capacity will not keep pace with oil sands growth, we expect that they will make investments in more efficient rail transport, including equipment for moving pure bitumen. These investments would narrow the gap between the economics of transporting oil sands by pipeline and by rail.”
http://unconventionalenergy.blogs.ihs.com/2013/09/10/oil-sands-bitumen-a-unique-case-for-rail-economics/
Euclid's quote"However, if producers anticipate that new pipeline capacity will not keep pace with oil sands growth, we expect that they will make investments in more efficient rail transport, including equipment for moving pure bitumen. These investments would narrow the gap between the economics of transporting oil sands by pipeline and by rail.”
I am not sure their semantics are any better than their use of 'railing' as an adjective for a transport mode. Surely they would want to see any 'gap' WIDEN between pipeline economics (which inherently involve both diluent and backhaul of same) and a rail infrastructure which can avoid or dramatically limit those costs. I am still hoping for someone to give a full assessment of how far bitumen has to be diluted to be pipeline-compatible with other materials -- the five-year economics of building a pipeline, net of all costs, SOLELY for bitumen transport can't be within orders of magnitude of railbit operations... not so?
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