Northiana has developed a technology that can enable the transportation of highly viscous fluids, such as under-blended crude oil and thickened mine tailings, through existing pipelines while using less energy. Traditionally, bitumen transport requires a 30% blend of diluent, an additive to reduce the thickness of the bitumen and help it flow through pipelines. Diluent can be costly for operators as it is mostly imported. Current transportation methods also rely on high-pressure pumping stations along the length of the pipeline that can speed up wear inside the transport pipes. Northiana aims to address these challenges through its Continuous Multilayered Encapsulation (CME) Technology, which uses hydrogel tubing to ‘encase’ the bitumen and reduce drag by 80 to 90%. This allows for the diluent blend to be reduced by half (from 30% to 15%) and reduces emissions through 3 pathways:
- reducing upstream impacts of diluent production and processing,
- significantly lowering the electricity or fuel used by pump stations, and
- decreasing the energy required for thermal separation (fractionation) of diluent.
This project aims to advance Northiana’s technology from a validated concept to a commercial service through a field demonstration on an active 60 km feeder pipeline to Hardisty, AB.