
Canadian plans to transport oil as solid briquettes move forward - tshannon
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/01/canadian-plans-to-transport-oil-as-solid-briquettes-move-forward/
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tshannon
> First, to send bitumen through a pipeline, a diluent to make the bitumen
> flow more easily must be added, and that diluent is often 30 percent or more
> of the volume traveling through the pipeline

My first that was that even though this seems like a good idea there's no way
oil companies would go for the added expense, but I didn't realize there was
so much additive already needed when oil is sent through a pipeline.

> That said, Auld was explicit that a solution like CanaPux probably wouldn't
> work for anything but the heaviest of crudes. "The heavier your crude oil
> is, the less polymer you need [to make CanaPux] and the more diluent you
> need" to send that oil through a pipeline, Auld said. In those specific
> cases, the economics favor CanaPux. Lighter crudes, on the other hand, flow
> through pipelines much easier and would need a lot more polymer additive to
> be made into solid form.

