Ivanhoe resumes tests at heavy oil facility

July 14, 2006
Ivanhoe Energy Inc. has resumed test runs at its heavy oil upgrading commercial demonstration facility (CDF) in Bakersfield, Calif., after a series of upgrades (OGJ, Mar. 27, 2006, Newsletter).

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, July 14 -- Ivanhoe Energy Inc. has resumed test runs at its heavy oil upgrading commercial demonstration facility (CDF) in Bakersfield, Calif., after a series of upgrades (OGJ, Mar. 27, 2006, Newsletter).

Ivanhoe conducted a 26-hr run of California vacuum tower bottoms (VTBs) to confirm performance of the upgrades and to generate data for future test runs.

The test mainly involved the "high-yield" mode of CDF operation, which uses one processing pass to lower crude viscosity enough to meet pipeline specifications.

Toward the end of the run the mode shifted to "high quality" to commission the recent modifications. The high-quality mode recycles streams to process heavy oils, such as those from western Canada, requiring a more-fully upgraded product and higher levels of byproduct, on-site energy.

Ed Veith, Ivanhoe vice-president of HTL technology, the company's proprietary process, said, "We will now concentrate our efforts on preparing the CDF for the high-quality mode of operations and for processing Athabasca bitumen."

Ivanhoe has taken delivery of Athabasca bitumen for later tests.