The New Alternative Liquid Fuel made from Technical
MSAR™
"The New Alternative Liquid Fuel made from Bitumen and Heavy Hydrocarbons"
One of the major challenges facing industry is the ever-increasing cost of energy to power its operations, usually provided by natural gas. But there is an alternative to natural gas - and the ability to significantly reduce overall energy costs. The alternative is MSAR™, a fuel manufactured from heavy hydrocarbon feedstock.
WHAT IS MSAR™ ?
MSAR™ (Multiphase Superfine Atomized Residue) is a liquid fuel consisting of very fine oil droplets, dispersed in a water carrier, which can be burned as an efficient energy source in many industrial applications. Manufactured from heavy hydrocarbons such as bitumen or refinery residue, MSAR™ can be a practical and cost effective alternative fuel to natural gas, fuel oil, coal and bitumen.
MSAR™ offers the following advantages:
Lower overall cost than natural gas
Manufactured on site
Excellent carbon burnout characteristics, similar to natural gas
Uses bitumen and heavy residue feedstock in the range of -10o to 14o API
Ideal disposal method for refinery residue products
Lower combustion temperatures resulting in lower NOx emissions
Better heat transfer properties than natural gas
Minimal fuel preheating requirements
Eliminates expensive steam atomization by using warm low pressure air for combustion
Easily handled and safely stored
History of MSAR™
In the early 1980's British Petroleum and PDVSA, the national oil company of Venezuela announced the development of a new process that converted bitumen from the Orinoco basin in southern Venezuela to a fuel that could be burned in commercial power boilers. The new process, and its related product Orimulsion®, is now used worldwide as a feedstock for power generation. Current consumption of Orimulsion® exceeds 100,000 bpd.
MSAR™, takes the concepts previously used in emulsified fuels, such as Orimulsion®, and enhances and develops them to meet the new energy challenges including finding an alternative industrial fuel to replace natural gas. Development of MSAR™ was initiated in the early 1990's by Quadrise Limited, a company which includes senior members of the original Orimulsion® commercial and technical development teams. In 1999 Quadrise Limited joined forces with Akzo Nobel nv, a large international chemical company, to incorporate Akzo Nobel's extensive technology in manufacturing heavy hydrocarbon emulsions, thus enabling the rapid development of a robust commercial scale MSAR™ manufacturing system.
While in principle MSAR™ is similar to Orimulsion®, MSAR™ offers several important advantages over Orimulsion®.
Smaller sized and consistent oil droplets, resulting in full carbon burnout
The ability to manufacture fuel locally and on-site using an abundant supply of low priced heavy hydrocarbon feedstock such as bitumen or refinery residue thereby avoiding any transportation risks
MSAR™ technology allows the fuel to be customized from many different feedstocks
MSAR™ is the product resulting from over ten years of recent development work in emulsion fuels that not only meets the original objectives of its developers, but also presents the possibility of becoming the standard as the primary fuel supply for companies having a readily available source of bitumen, heavy refinery bottoms or other non-conventional petroleum sources.
The MSAR™ Process
MSAR™ is a manufacturing process that chemically and mechanically combines bitumen or heavy residue with water and special process chemicals developed by Akzo Nobel nv, a large international chemical company. Akzo Nobel nv has played a key role in the development of MSAR™ and is the sole supplier of process chemicals for applications in which MSAR™ is used as the fuel supply. Quadrise Canada is the exclusive licensee of Akzo Nobel nv technology in Canada.
MSAR™ APPLICATIONS
SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage)
The largest deposit of oil sands bitumen and heavy oil in the world is located in northern Alberta - the Athabasca Oil Sands, Cold Lake and Peace River. Development plans by the major oil companies to expand production from these reserves are currently underway.
One of the largest single costs for developing oil sands and heavy oil is the cost of fuel required to produce the steam necessary for separating or producing the bitumen. The primary fuel used for this purpose is natural gas, currently priced at approximately $6.00 CAD per million BTU's (AECO Hub, Q1, 2004). MSAR™ is a logical alternative fuel to natural gas to serve this application. MSAR™ can be manufactured from the vast supplies of bitumen in these areas for substantially less than the current price of natural gas.
The logical entry point for MSAR™ is to replace natural gas in the recently implemented, and currently being planned, oil sands projects using SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) technology. This technology has unlocked enormous reserves of heavy oil and will be the major source of growth for the foreseeable future. Currently at a production level of approximately 200,000 bopd, SAGD production is conservatively estimated to grow to approximately 780,000 bopd by 2010 (ref: Raymond James "Oil Sands Insitu Projects", December 12, 2003).
Other MSAR™ Applications
While the Corporation's principal focus is to manufacture MSAR™ fuel for the heavy oil industry in northern Alberta, other fueling opportunities are currently evolving as industry-at-large seeks alternatives to high cost sources of energy. Some immediate applications include:
Replacement by MSAR™ for coal and heavy fuel oil in power generating stations
Disposal of low grade heavy residual products in refineries using proprietary processes, such as the ROSE™ de-asphalting process licensed by KBR (the international engineering division of Halliburton Corporation)
Fueling a broad range of small-to-medium industrial applications currently dependent upon natural gas
For the above applications, and many others, the Corporation is currently in discussion with potential clients and all may become a major component of the Corporation's business in the near future.
Flue Gas Desulphurization
Many bitumen and residue feedstocks contain small quantities of sulphur. As the sulphur cannot be economically removed in the oil treating process it becomes part of the feedstock to the MSAR™ fuel system and appears as a component in the combustion gases off the boilers. In order to meet environmental specifications it is necessary, where the feedstock contains sulphur, to install Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD) facilities on all boilers burning MSAR™. Such facilities are similar to those installed in most coal burning power plants throughout the world.
THE MSAR™ ADVANTAGE
MSAR™, as a source of fuel to the energy industry, offers two fundamental advantages:
Security of Supply
Reduced Fuel Cost
Security of Supply
Natural gas, which continues to be a principal fuel source for the steam and power generating industries, is a rapidly depleting resource in North America and many parts of the world. Depletion of this resource, combined with heightened public awareness of its extensive industrial use and potential impact upon future availability for domestic use, is a growing concern in North America today. Domestic North American demand, backed by legislation in both Canada and the United States, may dictate that the petroleum, power and other large industries use alternative energy sources to fuel their operations.
MSAR™ offers a solution to this problem. While natural gas reserves are declining, the sources of heavy residue from the world's refineries are increasing and reserves of bitumen are still enormous in relation to reserves of natural gas. Using MSAR™ technology these two currently untapped fuel sources provide industry a security of supply that simply cannot be realized with natural gas. MSAR™ provides industry the insurance policy it needs to proceed with the many large energy projects currently at the planning stage.
Reduced Fuel Cost
Over the last three years industry has seen a steady increase in the price of natural gas. The cost of MSAR™, including the cost of Flue Gas Desulphurization (FGD), is substantially less than of natural gas - a significant cost saving. And unlike the price of natural gas, which is anticipated to escalate as it is linked to conventional oil prices and with normal demand/supply conditions, the cost of MSAR™ is expected to see minimal escalation. Given energy consumption's sizeable share of overall operating costs, the impact of burning MSAR™ should have a very positive impact on overall operating income.