Toronto-based MCW Energy Group claims it will begin producing cleaner, cheaper oil from oil sands next year at a newly built processing plant in northeastern Utah.
It said that a new system that dispenses with the use of water is behind the claim.
MCW said the system will enable oil sands to be produced cleanly “without creating the toxic wastelands that have resulted from oil sands projects in Western Canada.”
It uses a proprietary technology that allows for the separation of oil from crushed rock and sand. Once separation is completed, the sand can apparently be safely returned to its original site.
MCW says too that the process is cheaper – around $38 per barrel, which is about half of the roughly $75 per barrel cost in Alberta.
The company cut the ribbon in October on a new oil sands extraction pilot plant near Vernal, Utah, home to the Asphalt Ridge deposit, which is alone thought to hold 1billion barrels of oil.
However, there is a downside ,the new pilot plant can handle only around 250 barrels a day. But, the company expects to expand the pilot and to build facilities in other locations.
MCW says that, with production costs coming in around $30 a barrel using this new technology, “not even slumping oil prices can derail the Utah project, which has the ability to hit profits even if oil prices drop to $65 a barrel”.
The oil sands resource in Utah is thought to be some 32billion barrels of heavy crude . . . more than half the US’s known oil sands reserves.
Recommended for you
