Bitumen as a Feedstock
Alberta’s petrochemical industry is based on adding valued to natural gas liquids (NGL) feedstocks, mainly ethane with some manufacturing based on propane and butane. While Alberta is currently Canada’s largest petrochemical producing area and one of the most competitive in North America, it is important to continue to seek improvement and innovation to maintain its competitive advantages. Alberta Energy recognizes that innovation is a key to maintaining long-term success and is actively working with industry to explore alternatives to natural gas use in oil sands operations. For example, gasification of bitumen or the production of refinery fuel gas from upgrading and refining operations could become a significant source of fuel and hydrogen for the oil sands industry, freeing up new feedstock supplies for the petrochemical industry.
The oil sands operations present many new opportunities for the petrochemical industry, including:
- Integration of petrochemical plants with refineries that convert bitumen to refined petroleum products.
- Gasification of oil sands by-products (e.g. create syngas from petroleum coke).
- Use of off-gases from the distillation and upgrading of bitumen as feedstock.
Given the size of the oil sands resource, it has the potential to be a long-term supply of competitively priced petrochemical feedstock. Some possible products from these processes could include: ethylene, propylene, benzene, polyethylene, naphtha, diesel, gasoline. The HUTF studies include identification of these bitumen-based opportunities.
