Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Current Oil Sands Technologies: GHOST Model Development and Illustrative Application

Abstract

A life cycle-based model, GHOST (GreenHouse gas emissions of current Oil Sands Technologies), which quantifies emissions associated with production of diluted bitumen and synthetic crude oil (SCO) is developed. GHOST has the potential to analyze a large set of process configurations, is based on confidential oil sands project operating data, and reports ranges of resulting emissions, improvements over prior studies, which primarily included a limited set of indirect activities, utilized theoretical design data, and reported point estimates. GHOST is demonstrated through application to a major oil sands process, steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD). The variability in potential performance of SAGD technologies results in wide ranges of "well-to-refinery entrance gate" emissions (comprising direct and indirect emissions): 18-41 g CO(2)eq/MJ SCO, 9-18 g CO(2)eq/MJ dilbit, and 13-24 g CO(2)eq/MJ synbit. The primary contributor to SAGD's emissions is the combustion of natural gas to produce process steam, making a project's steam-to-oil ratio the most critical parameter in determining GHG performance. The demonstration (a) illustrates that a broad range of technology options, operating conditions, and resulting emissions exist among current oil sands operations, even when considering a single extraction technology, and (b) provides guidance about the feasibility of lowering SAGD project emissions.