Energy, oil game-changer: Friedland, IvanhoeEnergy, oil game-changer: Friedland, Ivanhoe
Robert Friedland poses in Mongolia in 2004. Now he's found break-through tech. NatPost
Canada’s foremost mine-finder, Robert Friedland, is talking to me on his cell phone as his suitcase is being checked through airport security. He was home in Singapore for a day after a whirlwind few days in France then India. Today, he’s headed to London where he will meet analysts from around the world to tell them about Ivanhoe Energy Inc.’s pioneering technology which can shave up to $15 a barrel off oil sands/heavy oil refining costs.
This technology, developed by two Canadian chemical engineers in Ottawa and bought by Ivanhoe for oil application, is potentially a global game-changer.
Two years’ of field testing shows that the technology upgrades heavy oil without the need to burn natural gas or to bury toxic waste byproducts.
Landmark deal for Calgary
Last week, Friedland inked a landmark deal with Talisman Energy Inc. to acquire its oil sands leases in Alberta to use its technology and Talisman has buy-back rights. Ivanhoe’s commercial-pilot project in California successfully upgraded 1,000 barrels per day of heavy oil owned by ExxonMobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell.
“The technology surpassed all technical expectations on API gravity 14 [heavy oil],” he said. “We then ran a test of Athabasca bitumen, taken down by train, which is API gravity 8 [heavier oil] and it ran flawlessly which provided the final technical and economic validity.”
Here is how it works:
? The heavy oil is vaporized by a blast of hot sand and separates carbon and hydrogen molecules.
? Excess carbon is transferred to a reheater where it is burned off, the heat recaptured and used a s a fuel source.
? Light crude is produced and on-site energy that replaces natural gas as a fuel so it’s self-perpetuating.
Another advantage of this technology is upgrader/refineries can be as small as 10,000 to 30,000 barrels a day. Current methods involve big upgraders, solvents, gasifying, emissions, burial of waste. This process can upgrade oil on-site or in the field bitumen which currently must be shipped to big upgraders or south of the border.
“Shipping all the heavy gunk to Chicago uses a lot of energy. It’s like pushing cold honey through a pipeline. We are converting bitumen into the consistency of hot water through a pipeline,” he explained.
Worldclass potential
This technology has global potential because most oil reservoirs contain “heavier” crudes due to the fact that the light, high quality, basins have been used up.
“Most of the world’s oil is dominated by heavy crudes,” he said. “The new Brazilian discovery is heavy oil, Saudi Arabia’s fields are heavy, most of the Middle East’s production, a large percentage of Russia’s and of course Canada’s oil sands,” he said.
Break-throughs are nothing new to Friedland and he has found more ore bodies and technologies than anyone: There was a huge discovery in Alaska, then Voisey’s Bay in Labrador, then Mongolia’s giant copper-gold find and along the way he was a pioneer in satellite radio and now this. His companies operate in dozens of countries.
Friedland finds opportunities because he is an intellectual “geologist” and financier.
“It’s crazy how small the world has become,” he said during our chat today which took place as he went through Singapore security. “I live on an airplane and we run everything with BlackBerries around the clock.”