- Renovated Asphalt Ridge facility is good to go
- Output capacity now 1,000 barrels per day
- International promotion of blockchain oil and gas supply management platform continues
Blessed by an abundance of bitumen, Utah has become the center of the U.S. oil sands industry. The state has the largest individual deposits of bitumen in the United States, as well as the highest number of oil sands occurrences. Together, these bitumen deposits contain a yield equivalent to at least 30 billion barrels of oil, making Utah the source of 55 percent of U.S. oil sand crude. The deposits are primarily located in central southeastern Utah and the Uinta Basin of northeastern Utah. In the latter location, Petroteq Energy Inc. (TSX.V: PQE) (OTCQX: PQEFF) is working its Asphalt Ridge property. The company is applying its patented liquid extraction system to refine bitumen – technology that’s set to get the dilbit (diluted bitumen) flowing more freely in Utah.
Dilbit is bitumen to which either conventional light crude or natural gas liquids have been added to reduce viscosity. Bitumen, a type of crude oil found in natural oil sands deposits, is too thick to be pumped through pipelines as extracted. Consisting of sand, water and oily compounds, bitumen is the heaviest sort of crude in use today, more deserving of the label ‘tar’ than ‘oil’. Extracted bitumen is said to look and behave like black peanut butter. The largest global deposits are in Venezuela and Canada, containing, respectively, 267 billion and 200 billion barrels of recoverable crude.
Petroteq Energy Inc. has developed its patented, environmentally safe, continuous flow, closed loop technology – a first in North America and probably in the world – to extract bitumen oil from oil sands. The technology, the result of almost five years of research by Petroteq’s research and engineering teams led by Chief Technology Officer Dr. Vladimir Podlipskiy, depends on a patented solvent/surfactant. It can be effectively applied to both ‘water-wet’ deposits (such as the oil sands projects in Alberta, Canada) or the ‘oil-wet’ deposits found in Utah.
In February 2018, Petroteq announced that it had completed relocation and renovation work at its Asphalt Ridge Utah Plant. The improvements, which will expand output capacity to 1,000 bpd (barrels per day), included:
- Reassembly of the main structure;
- Installation of a motor control center to accommodate wiring for motors, pumps and mechanical equipment in preparation for future expansion of output capacity;
- Installation of the main mixing tank, second mixing tank and fin fan cooler at the new site;
- Replacement of the steam heater with a new, superior hot oil heater;
- Installation of several new pumps to facilitate oil and solvent flow; and
- Installation of earth berms for environmental protection.
Petroteq’s Temple Mountain Mine mineral lease at Asphalt Ridge covers over 3,000 acres in northeastern Utah, with an estimated 139.5 million gross barrels of bitumen (total bitumen initially in place), as disclosed in a 2015 independent resource evaluation report prepared by Chapman Petroleum Engineering Ltd. in accordance with the Canadian Oil and Gas Evaluation Handbook (“COGEH”). Of this gross volume of bitumen in place, Chapman estimated that 87.8 million barrels would, under favorable circumstances, support very positive mining economics. These 87.8 million barrels would be classified as a ‘Contingent Resource’ under current NI 51-101 and COGEH criteria.
Since modernization and reactivation, the Asphalt Ridge facility has been undergoing operational tests. These were completed in early March 2018, and the plant is now fully permitted for production. The company has received an Air Exemption Permit based on its patented closed-loop, zero-emission technology and a Ground Water Discharge Permit certifying that the construction and operation of the plant will have no deleterious impact on the quality of the surrounding ground water.
As well as reactivation of the Asphalt Ridge facility, Petroteq is continuing to promote its novel blockchain oil and gas supply chain management platform, PetroBLOQ. The company plans to open marketing offices in key strategic international markets, initially targeting Switzerland, Russia and Ukraine (http://nnw.fm/7GjVh). PetroBLOQ is building a consortium of oil and gas producers. The platform has already signed up PEMEX, the Mexican state-owned petroleum company, and SOCAR Energy Ukraine, Ltd. (“SOCAR”), a subsidiary of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.Petroteq.energy
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