In 1974, the Alberta government created a Crown corporation to work with researchers and industry to develop new oil sands technologies. This corporation, known as the Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority (AOSTRA)*, set out to examine areas of the Athabasca oil sands that were too deep (generally held to be over 70 meters in depth) to be mined.*Note: AOSTRA changed hands several times throughout the next 26 years. In 1986 it was taken over by the Alberta Department of Energy and then in August 2000, its programs were consolidated by the Alberta Energy Research Institute (AERI).
In 1978, Dr. Roger Butler (Ph.D., Chemical Engineering) from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, introduced the concept of Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). AOSTRA, industry and government supported SAGD as a promising innovation.In 1984, AOSTRA developed an Underground Test Facility (UTF) to test SAGD technology. The site, located approximately 60 kilometres northwest of Fort McMurray, was owned and operated by 10 industry partners and received government funding. It was here that the SAGD process was confirmed to be commercially viable.
The UTF operation was conducted in three phases:
- The first phase consisted of drilling two horizontal well pairs separated by 25 metres and 60 metres in length. This test was successful.
- The second phase used three well pairs about 600 metres in length that were horizontally and vertically separated by 70 metres and four metres. These wells were successfully operated for approximately 10 years.
- The third phase involved a slant-drilling rig used to drill two horizontal well pairs 650 metres in length and six metres in vertical separation. This phase was only partially successful at first, but by 1997 production had significantly improved.
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