Conventional Heavy Oil

Mastering Heavy Oil Complexities

Unlike lighter crudes, conventional heavy oil poses distinct challenges: it typically features high viscosity, heavy API specific gravity, and elevated concentrations of contaminants such as sulfur and heavy metals. Extracting, transporting, and initially processing this resource requires highly specialized, robust engineering to ensure economic viability and operational flow assurance. At the ACP Group, we are industry veterans in the conventional heavy oil sector, delivering field-proven designs that overcome these inherent obstacles.

Our comprehensive approach addresses the entire upstream and midstream heavy oil life cycle. From the initial cold-production wellpad design to complex central processing facilities (CPFs), our multi-disciplinary engineering teams ensure that heavy oil is effectively separated from water and sand, heated for transport, and brought to market specification efficiently and safely.

Heavy Oil Processing Capabilities

We design facilities that can withstand the abrasive and challenging nature of heavy oil production. Our primary engineering focus areas include:

• Primary Separation & Treating: Designing highly effective Free Water Knockouts (FWKO) and heater treaters to separate heavy oil emulsions efficiently while managing high solids/sand content.
• Flow Assurance & Heating: Implementing sophisticated localized heating, dilution strategies (blending with condensates), and insulated piping networks to ensure continuous flow and prevent pipeline plugging.
• Produced Water Management: Designing durable water treatment and disposal systems capable of handling heavily contaminated produced water inherent to heavy oil extraction.

Instrumentation and Process Automation

In heavy oil operations, minor fluctuations in temperature or pressure can drastically impact fluid viscosity and process efficiency. ACP Group provides industry-leading system integration, deploying robust Distributed Control Systems (DCS) and intelligent instrumentation that can withstand harsh field conditions. We enable operators to achieve precise control over heating systems, dilution ratios, and chemical injection rates.

Furthermore, we leverage industrial data analytics to monitor the health of critical rotating equipment—especially the progress cavity pumps and multi-phase fluid transfer pumps commonly used in heavy oil—thereby enabling predictive maintenance and reducing costly downtime.

Focus on Safety and Sustainability

Handling heavy oil often involves higher operating temperatures and significant energy input. We embed advanced safety protocols into our designs, conforming rigorously to all environmental safety standards. By optimizing burner efficiency in heater treaters and implementing vapor recovery units (VRUs) to capture fugitive emissions, we help clients minimize their carbon footprint while simultaneously maximizing their operational efficiency and reducing fuel gas consumption.