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Oil sands is not a well. It is a form of geology, sand. The oil sands are so much a geological structure it is classified by the USGS.
Introduction (click here)
Because conventional light oil can typically be produced at a high rate and a low cost, it has been used before other types of oil. Thus, conventional oil accounts for a declining share of the Earth's remaining oil endowment. In addition to assessing conventional oil resources, scientists of the U.S. Geological Survey's Energy Resources Program collect data on the abundant energy resources available as heavy oil (including extra-heavy oil) and natural bitumen; see definitions in sidebar. The data in this Fact Sheet are compiled from commercial databases (NRG Associates, I.H.S. Petroconsultants), unpublished government data, and the published literature....
Oil is rated on QUALITY. It is rated by a standard known as API gravity. This graph explains the DEGREE of API to Specific Gravity and Weight.
The temperature of the specific gravity calculation in this graph is at 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
The specific gravity also refers to viscosity. The flow rate of the oil.
Example: "A flowrate of 1.0; 1/min of oil of specific gravity 0.92 exists in the pipeline."
What does all that mess mean? It means that when a specific gravity is lower and the weight of the oil is less and the flow rate is better.
Imagine maple syrup and molasses. What flows faster? The maple syrup. The specific gravity is lower with maple syrup. It is less viscous and flows easier.
Now, imagine pouring maple syrup and molasses down the kitchen sink drain. What happens?
That is the difference between crude oil out of a well and tar sands oil. What occurs when kitchen drains back up? What occurs when tar sands are in an oil pipeline? The slower the oil flows, the more stress placed on the system and the pressure builds by pure gravity. The flow rate is lower with tar sands and it increases the pressure within the pipeline system. The more volume in the system the greater the pressure. The flow rate does not accommodate the viscosity of the extracted oil and there is rupture in the pipeline.
Basically for the pipelines to hold up under heavier oil in them, the viscosity should be lower and not higher. The distribution of weight can be somewhat accommodated by increased flow rate. Water flows very fast, ask any farmer in the Midwest that has lost his topsoil to flooding. Water causes erosion it flows so fast.
So, the idea in any pipeline is to distribute the weight of the fluid over a larger 'surface area' by increasing the flow rate. The faster the fluid flows the less stress it places on the pipeline.
...A less rigorous definition (click here) of heavy oil is oil that is “not recoverable in its natural state through a well by ordinary production methods.” However, some heavy oil less than 22.3° API does flow very slowly but most requires heat or dilution to flow into a well or through a pipeline. Heavy oil from the Lloydminster area of Alberta and Saskatchewan has API gravities ranging from 9° to 18°. Heavy oil makes up about 15 per cent of the world’s remaining oil reserves. It usually contains impurities such as sulphur, heavy metals, waxes and carbon residue that must be removed before it is refined....
What do we know about degrees of API? If under 10 it will sink and not float. The Canadian Tar Sands requires heat to travel through any pipeline. It has to be extracted with heat and made higher in API degree to provide a flow rate of some kind.
The point is this. What is occurring on a regular basis is pipeline rupture due to the changing state of oil traveling through it. I question whether some of the qualities of the tar sands oil is even corrosive, but, I haven't looked into that. I don't care the pipeline or age, the petroleum industry is a disaster in the USA and we can't afford to continue to play with it in a country with economic concerns, fishery collapse and land degradation.
What occurred in Alabama happened in a zoned area of housing. Today in North Carolina if anyone builds a home they lose their mineral rights under their property to the petroleum industry. This is where people live and there is an understanding by governments the American Dream is allowed to be toyed with for profits to companies so desperate they are harvesting tar sands at the cost of the climate. What does that say about an industry's regard for human life? What does that say about the respect of the American Dream?
The API of crude oil is:
According to the NYMEX, light sweet crude (the grade of oil most commonly traded in the commodities markets due to its comparable low level of difficulty in gasoline distillation) has an API gravity of 34 degrees to 41 degrees for foreign delivery.
The API gravity is a scale developed by the American Petroleum Institute according to a Wikipedia article which can be found at http://www.answers.com/API%20gravity.
Weight per gallon formula:
The formula given is to calculate SG at 60 degrees F. (weight in kilograms) = 141.5 / (API gravity + 131.5) which translates to between 0.855 and 0.820 (per liter).
A gallon is equivalent to 3.785 liters, so the answer is:
The weight of light sweet crude is between 3.104 and 3.236 kg (7 lbs) per gallon.
The weight of Canadian Tar Sands oil is between 3.806 and 3.582 kg (8.39) per gallon.
No matter how the petroleum industry tries to justify the extraction of Canadian Oil Sands they will NEVER be able to build an infrastructure that will hold up. The Tar Sands is far too much a desperate measure to maintain a market and profits for this industry.
Processing the tar sands oil even at refineries requires completely different handling and processes. This venture was wayward from the beginning and will cause a great deal of grief throughout it's production.
When a company destroys nature in order to provide a product, one has to realize the brevity of the decision and what it took to make it.
