超臨界水を用いた超重質油改質 (SCWC) 技術

抄録

Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) announced that Alberta's annual raw crude bitumen production will rise to 4,100,000 barrels per day by 2023 twice as much as 2,100,000 barrels per day of the present. It is an infallible situation to continue to put a lot of energy into production of bitumen as an Alberta state government.
However, the production of bitumen is not easy because of its viscosity. A lot of steam is needed for production and diluents (such as condensate and naphtha) about 30 % of bitumen are needed for transportation. So the supply cost of bitumen is higher than that of crude oil.
Moreover, much of diluent is import from U.S. and also a large number of the “Dilbit” (bitumen with diluent) are exported to U.S. As a result, increasing of production is dependent on U.S., so it is problem from a viewpoint of energy security in Canada.
Partial upgrading technology is one of solution to the needs. Partial upgrading technology converts bitumen into synthetic crude oil which can be transported on pipeline. But synthetic crude oil is different from product of refinery such as gasoline.
In the presentation, the Supercritical Water Cracking (SCWC) technology (one of the Partial upgrading technology) will be described for the one of solution for the needs. This technology is developed by Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) and JGC. It is focused on its merit and the present status of technology development.