Stories tagged with "thai"

Extracting Heavy Oil: Using Toe to Heel Air Injection (THAI)

Posted by Gail the Actuary on August 27, 2007 - 9:00am in The Oil Drum: Canada
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: heavy oil, oil, tar sands, thai [list all tags]

This post reflects collaboration between Don, also known as 1observer, and myself. Don is an arms-length investor in Petrobank Energy and Resources Ltd., the company that patented THAI. Otherwise, he has no ties with the company. This post is based on an analysis of publicly available documents. I want to thank Don for all of his hard work that went into this.

1. What is toe to heel air injection technology?

Toe to heel air injection (THAI) is a new method of extracting oil from heavy oil deposits which may have significant advantages over existing methods. The method was developed by Malcolm Greaves of the University of Bath and has been patented by Petrobank. According to the Petrobank website:

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In Situ retorting of oil shale

Posted by Heading Out on July 4, 2006 - 7:39pm
Topic: Supply/Production
Tags: economics, gasification, in-situ retorting, oil shale, retorts, thai [list all tags]

In posting about oil shale, one of the points that needs stressing is that the oil is not really oil. And this creates a problem when it comes to getting the kerogen (or oil for simplicity) separated from the rock around it. As I said in the first post on this, the oil can be separated in a retort, after being mined. The retorting can be self-energized and, by heating the oil it can be transformed into a form of butumen that can then be further refined into a commercial grade of shale oil that can be similar to a more conventional crude.

Mining shale, however, is fairly expensive, both in terms of energy, and hard dollars. At the same time, once the oil is extracted, the spent shale has to be disposed of. That costs more money. Considering all these potential expenses and potential problems, it is therefore not surprising, from the beginning, that the idea of trying to create the initial retort in the rock, and making that transition to oil in-place looked as though it might be a winner.

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