Regulator approves more steaming at leaking oilsands site

[Oscar]

Regulator approves more steaming at leaking oilsands site

[ http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2014/04 ... ign=240414 ]

[ By Andrew Nikiforuk Published April 23, 2014 09:55 am

Despite an unresolved leak, the Alberta Energy Regulator has given bitumen extractor Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. permission to once again start steaming [ http://www.aer.ca/documents/news-releas ... 014-15.pdf ] parts of its Primrose and Wolf project in the Cold Lake Weapons Range.

Last spring, the Primrose operation sprouted mysterious, bitumen-oozing fractures on the ground at four well locations over the sprawling 73,000-hectare project.

From these fissures, more than 12,000 barrels of steamed bitumen has flowed onto muskeg and the forest floor, making the spill one of the largest in Alberta's history.

The spill has raised alarm bells among heavy oil investors. More than half of the bitumen extracted from Alberta's oilsands now comes from costly and energy-intensive thermal operations like the ones at Primrose.

The so-called in situ operations burn natural gas to make steam that melts deep deposits of junk crude. Many have experienced surface casing leaks, but the regulator keeps no dedicated record of such events.

Warns [ http://www.esgsolutions.com/CMFiles/Tec ... h%20v1.pdf ] one Ontario-based microseismic monitoring company: "In many cases, operators must be conscious of the rock formations surrounding the reservoir, and need to ensure that the high pressure steam does not induce fractures in a caprock layer or reactivate existing faults or fractures, causing communication with a sensitive layer (i.e. an aquifer) or in the case of shallow operations, the surface."

CNRL employs a process known as cyclic steam stimulation that injects high volumes of steam into 500-metre deep bitumen formations.

This form of fluid injection, which behaves much like hydraulic fracturing, typically heaves the ground by as much as 36 centimetres over the course of a month.

Steaming restrictions imposed by the regulator in 2013 remain in place at Primrose East and within one kilometre of the well pad leak at Primrose South.

"The [regulator] understands that Albertans are concerned about operations at Primrose and Wolf Lake. While we don't generally announce project approvals outside of hearing processes, after reviewing concerns submitted by several stakeholders, we want to ensure transparency is upheld," Alberta Energy Regulator CEO Jim Ellis said in a statement.

In a March update [ http://www.cnrl.com/upload/media_elemen ... 3-2014.pdf ] on its website, CNRL said that it hopes to "locate and delineate" how bitumen flowed to the surface from the Clearwater formation, and identify "the root cause(s) of the flow to surface" of nearly 12,000 barrels of steamed bitumen.

To date, the Calgary-based company has spent more than $40 million in cleanup operations that have involved the removal of approximately 70,000 tonnes of earth.

It also pumped 404,378 cubic metres of water out of a small unnamed lake to clean up two seeping bitumen fissures.

Mike Hudema, a Greenpeace energy and climate change campaigner, characterized the decision to allow steaming at the project as irresponsible.

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