SAGD technology reduces emissions and water use
Cenovus continues to investigate new ways to further lower water consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from our enhanced oil operations in east-central Alberta.
Our steam to oil ratio, which is an efficiency measure of our steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) operations, was 2.5 in 2008, one of the lowest in the industry. A lower ratio means we use less natural gas to heat water into steam, resulting in lower emissions and lower operating costs. It also means we use less water for every barrel of oil produced.
The use of fresh water in our operations is considered to be a best practice. At Foster Creek we use 0.09 barrels of freshwater for each barrel of oil we produce. This is significantly less than the 0.5 used for each barrel of oil at a similar thermal bitumen recovery project in Cold Lake.
At Christina Lake, instead of relying on steam alone, we are developing a process that mixes the steam with a solvent that helps to liquefy the oil. We recover the solvent, separate it at the surface and re-use it. This new process holds the promise of reducing the amount of steam we need to recover oil, which would further reduce the amount of natural gas we use to produce the steam thereby lowering emissions.
