SPE-170063-MS

Investigation of Interburden Dilution on Oil Sand Processability

Xiaoli Yang and Andrea Sedgwick, Total E&P Canada

Copyright 2014, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Heavy Oil Conference-Canada held in Alberta, Canada, 10 –12 June 2014.

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Abstract
Surface mining of oil sands is generally limited to areas where the overburden thickness is less than ~75
m. Oil sands consist of a mixture of coarse sands, fine mineral solids, clays, formation water, and bitumen.
Usually the orebody varies from 20 to 90 m in thickness, and the oil sand formation deposit is not
homogeneous as it is intermingled with clays lenses (interburden). Bitumen content has been traditionally
used as an indicator of ore processability. In fact, ores with a bitumen content of below 7% are considered
uneconomical for processing. In this study, four types of ores were selected to evaluate the effect of adding
two types of interburden with high clay contents on their ore processability. Ore processability was tested
using the batch extraction unit. It was found that the interburden dilution does not always detrimentally
affect the recovery. Depending on the ore grade, interburden dilution may boost the recovery for coarse
grained ores, and depress the recovery for average and low grade ores. Current operational use of a
maximum allowable fraction of interburden blended into oil sand feed may be overly simplistic. The
results suggest that dilution to a maximum fines content of the blend is required rather than to a maximum
fraction of interburden. Interburden effect on tailings settling behavior was also studied.

Introduction
It is well known that open-pit mining is one of two main methods used for the recovery of bitumen from
the Athabasca oil sands. Mining is applied in relatively shallow oil sands formations, generally limited to
areas where the overburden thickness is less than ~75 m. Usually the orebody varies from 20 to 90 m in
thickness, and the oil sand deposit is not homogeneous as it is intermingled with clays lenses (interbur-
den). As the first step in open-pit mining, shovels and trucks are used to move the oil sands to the ore
preparation plant. This mining method plays a very important role in the processability of oil sands as ore
selectivity can be a challenge. Invariably the clays cannot always be removed from the oil sands ore and the
blended ore and clays are sent to the ore processing plant. This is generally known as dilution of the ore.
Traditionally, operators have used a maximum fraction of interburden to be blended into the oil sands ore that
is sent to the plant. This has been based on empirical data obtained from each oil sands operating site.
Oil sands consist of a mixture of coarse sands, fine mineral solids, clays, formation water, and bitumen.
Bitumen content has been traditionally used as an indicator of ore processability. In fact, ores with a
bitumen content of below 7% are considered uneconomical for processing. However, extensive studies
2 SPE-170063-MS

Table 1—Water Chemistry of the Water Used in BEU Tests

Anions (mg/L) Cations (mg/L)

pH Clⴚ SO42ⴚ HCO3ⴚ CO32ⴚ Ca2ⴙ Mg2ⴙ Naⴙ Kⴙ Electrical Conductivity (mS/cm)

8.0 6.0 42 134 0.0 37 11 6.6 0.5 0.316

have shown that high clay content in the ores will deteriorate the bitumen recovery (Clark 1944, Sanford
1983, Masliyah et al. 2011, Kotlyar 1984, Kasongo 2006, Yang 2013).
Previously, some studies were undertaken to investigate the ore processability of Athabasca oil sands
when contaminated with overburden materials which resulted in poor processability (Smith 1987). Few
studies were found to investigate the impact of interburden dilution, which typically has very high clay
content, on ore processability. Four types of oil sand ores and two types of interburden with high clay
contents were selected for this study. The purpose was to evaluate the effect of adding interburden on ore
processability. The Syncrude style batch extraction unit was used to evaluate the ore processability of the
blended samples. The impact of interburden dilution on bitumen recovery, froth quality and the tailings
settling behavior is discussed in this paper.
Material and Experimental
Materials
Four ore and two interburden samples were obtained from the Total operated Joslyn North Mine lease. The
composition of ores and interburden samples were determined by the Dean-Stark extraction method. The
Methylene Blue Index (MBI) and particle size distribution of solids isolated from samples were measured.
The water chemistry of the water used in BEU tests is shown in Table 1.
BEU Test Procedure and Test Condition
The standard test procedure of the Syncrude style batch extraction unit (BEU) was used to evaluate the
ore processability such as the primary, secondary, and total recovery, and their froth quality respectively.
The test developed simulateds the conditioning step, the primary, and secondary flotation steps to recover
bitumen in the continous commercial process (Sanford 1979). Figure 1 briefly elucidates the primary
froth, the secondary froth, and tailing samples collected in the primary flotation step, the secondary
flotation step, and in the end of test respectively. Table 2 lists test conditions in each step.
The composition of the primary froth, secondary froth, and tailings was assayed for froth quality determi-
nation. The primary, secondary, or total recovery was obtained by calculating the weight precent of the bitumen
in the oil sand recovered in each step of the BEU test. Since the primary recovery obtained with this test
procedure has been found to be a good indicator of the primary recovery obtained with a continuous pilot unit,
primary recovery and total recovery were reported herein to evaluate the ore processability.
Settling Test
After the BEU test, the tailing slurry was collected in a 2 L jar for further settling tests. Figure 2
displays the schematic of the preparation procedure of the slurry for settling tests.
After sieving, the slurry with fines ⬍ ⫺125 ␮m was collected. The sands to fines ratio (SFR) and solids
content of this slurry were measured. Approximately 490 mL of the slurry was placed in a 500 mL graduated
cylinder and the initial volume, clarity and pH were recorded. An initial flocculant dose was then added. The
slurry/flocculant mixture was carefully mixed with the plunger (Figure 3 (a)). If, after mixing, either the settling
rate requirement or the 1 minute clarity requirement was not met, then a second flocculant dosage was added
and the process repeated until both settling rate and clarity requirements were met.
Water clarity of the slurry was determined using a clarity wedge where a subsample of the supernatant
fluid was transferred to a clarity wedge and a reading taken with 0 being the worst clarity and 46 being
SPE-170063-MS 3

Figure 1—Schematic of the BEU Test Procedure and Samples Collected and Analyzed

Table 2—BEU Steps and Operation Conditions

Step Variable Value the best clarity (Figure 3 (b)). This number would
determine whether or not this sample passed the
Conditioning Stage Oil Sand 500 g
Initial Water 150 g
clarity requirement. The subsample was transferred
Air 150 mL/min back to the settling cylinder once the clarity was
RPM 600 measured.
Time 10 minutes Once the final flocculant was added, the sed-
Primary Flotation Additional Water 900 g
Air 0 mL/min
iment height was recorded at 15s, 30s, 45s, 1 min,
Time 10 minutes 2 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins, 20 mins, 40 mins, 1 hr,
RPM 600 and 20 hrs. The clarity value was measured using
Secondary Flotation Air 50 mL/min
clarity wedge at 1 min, 1 hr and 20 hrs. A typical
RPM 800
Time 5 minutes settling curve and corresponding pictures are
shown in Figure 4.

Results and discussions

Characterization of Ores and Interburdens
The composition of ores and interburdens, and mineralogical properties of these solids were measured
and shown in Table 3.
The defining characteristics of the ores selected were:
● Ore 1 mainly consisted of a coarse grained solids with low fines and low clay content;
● Ore 2 had a higher bitumen content with low fines and low clay content solids
● Ore 3 had a higher fines and higher clay content solids
● Ore 4 had very high fines and clay contents solids
The two typical interburden samples chosen for testing had very high fines and extremely high clay
contents. It can also be seen in Table 3 that the solids content was slightly higher and entrained water
content significantly higher than the oil sand ores.
Figure 5 displays the particle size distribution (PSD) of solids isolated from the four ores and two
interburdens.
4 SPE-170063-MS

Figure 2—Schematic of the Preparation of Slurry for Settling Tests

Figure 3 (a and b)—(a): Plunger and 500ml Cylinder; (b): Clarity Wedge

Figure 4 —Typical Settling Curve and Pictures of the Flocculated Slurrys Taken at Different Times

Investigation of Interburden Dilution on Ore Processability

A series of BEU tests were conducted to evaluate the impact of ore processability by adding a certain
portion of interburden into ores. The two types of interburden were blended with the four oil sand ores
defined in section 3.1. Table 4 lists the composition and solids properties of the four ores after being
SPE-170063-MS 5

Table 3—Composition Analyses of Ore and Interburden

Ore Composition Ore Solids Analysis

Sample ID Bitumen, % Solids, % Water, % Fines, < 44 ␮m D50, ␮m MBI (meq/100g sample)

Ore 1 9.4 86.6 3.8 5.2 486.9 0.18

Ore 2 13.7 83.8 2.4 4.7 163.0 0.12
Ore 3 9.9 83.9 5.5 21.6 103.7 0.80
Ore 4 7.3 84.5 7.9 28.9 95.7 1.28
Interburden 1 0.4 88.1 11.4 77.2 14 6.60
Interburden 2 1.0 87.9 9.8 72.6 13 6.09

Figure 5—PSD Curves of Solids Isolated from Four Ores and Two Interburdens

blended with 5% or 15% of interburden. It was not surprising to see that as more interburden was blended,
the ore grade declined from two perspectives: lower bitumen content and higher fines content. Because
the recoveries of four oil sand ores had been obtained in the BEU tests, and the two interburden samples
were assumed to have no bitumen recovery, it was possible to predict the recoveries of the ores diluted
with interburden based on the dilution ratio. The calculated recoveries are included in Table 4. Actual
recoveries obtained in the BEU tests are displayed in Figure 6 (a, b, c, and d).
It is interesting to find that the actual recoveries of ores diluted with interburden did not consistently
decline as would be predicted by the calculated recoveries in Table 4. The impact of interburden dilution
on the primary recovery and total recovery varied depending on the original ore grade. Coarse-grained ore,
Ore 1, gained the most benefit for improving its primary recovery with interburden addition (Figure 6 (a)).
Dilution of the ore resulted in an across-the-board increase of primary recovery with the higher levels of
dilution causing primary recovery increases of ⬎40% and total recovery increases of ⬎10%. A slight
benefit was also observed in Ore 2 cases (Figure 6 (b)) where all of the dilution tests resulted in a modest
recovery gain. The worst impact of interburden addition was observed for Ore 3 cases (Figure 6 (c)).
Primary recovery was dramatically depressed with increasing interburden dilution of the ore. It was noted
that adding interburden into Ore 4 did not cause a signficant impact compared to what was observed in
Ore 3 cases (Figure 6 (d)). A similar trend was observed in their total recoveries. Figure 7 displays the
delta of recovery between measured in BEU tests and predicted based on calculation for these blended
ores. In all tests, it was difficult to distinguish which interburden was more poisonous in reducing the
recovery, except one case: Ore 3 with 15% of Interburden 2 (highlighted in Figure 7). In this blend, both
primary and total recoveries were depressed more than 30 – 40%. The deficiencies of both recoveries were
15–20% more than the case of Ore 3 diluted with 15% of Interburden 1.
6 SPE-170063-MS

Table 4 —Composition, Solids Properties, Recovery of Four Ores after Diluted with Two Interburdens

*Actual recovery values from BEU tests

Figure 6 —Impact of Interburden Dilution on Recoveries of Four Types of Ores after blended with Interburden

If recovery results are replotted in terms of fines in the ore blend tested, Figure 8 (a and b) would be
obtained.
It was found that the fines in final blend play an important role to affect the recovery. For
coarse-grained ore, Ore 1, after introducing up to 15% interburden, although their fines content and the
SPE-170063-MS 7

Figure 7—Delta of Recovery between Actual Recovery and Predicted Recovery

Figure 8 —Delta of Recovery between Measured Recovery and Predicted Recovery in Interburden Dilution Tests

MBI in blend solids were increased, the total fines content was still lower than or close to 15%); however,
the fines increase did not hinder processability. The additional fines increase the viscosity of the carrier
fluid making which slows down the separation process in the primary separation cell to give more time
for bitumen to float to the top. This would explain why higher primary recoveries were observed, and
eventually higher total recoveries were achieved. A slight benefit was also observed in Ore 2 cases
because their fines contents in new blends were still lower than 15%. Ore 2 was good enough to embrace
these increased fines which stabilized recovery. The worst impact of interburden addition was observed
for Ore 3 cases. Ore 3 itself contained 21.6% of fines which already made it in a very sensitive region for
processability (8). Introducing more fines by blending with interburden samples pushed the fines content
of the diluted blends into the range of 24 to 30% fines which is known to decrease bitumen recovery.
Dilution with both 5% and 15% interburden invariably led to large losses in both primary and total
recovery. Ore 4 contained 28.9% of fines which are high enough to deteriorate its processability without
any extra fines being added. The introduction of additional fines by blending the ore with the interburden
samples resulted in fines contents that were over 30 to 35%. The recoveries were reduced; however, the
rate of recovery loss was considerably less than the rate of recovery loss for Ore 3 cases. This implies that
the additional fines introduced into Ore 4 ore did not significantly worsen its processability. It seemed that
its processability was already close to the minimum, beyond which there is little additional loss of
recovery.
Figure 9 illuminates the impact of interburden dilution on the froth qualities of new blends. The results
show that interburden addition did deteriorate the froth quality for Ore 2, Ore 3 and Ore 4, especially when
8 SPE-170063-MS

Figure 9 —Impact of Interburden Dilution on Froth Quality of Diluted Blends

Figure 10 —Impact of Interburden Dilution on Settling Rates of Slurries from Various Groups

15% of interburden was introduced. However, slight benefit on the froth quality for Ore 1 was observed
with interburden addition.
The quality of the tailings generated by the processing of the ores is also an important factor in the
extraction plant. For cases where a thickener is used to process the fine tailings, two parameters are
important: settling rate after flocculation and clarity of the supernatant water. In the investigation of the
interburden addition’s effect on tailings settling, it was not surprising to see the negative effect on settling
rates (Figure 10). This was primarily due to the fines and clays increase with interburden addition.
Interburden dilution dramatically slowed down settling rates of slurries generated from low grade ores
although no significant impact was observed on their recovery. Figure 10 also shows that with increasing
interburden addition, more flocculant was required to settle these slurries.
Similar detrimental impact on water clarity of the tailings slurries with interburden addition is
displayed in Figure 11. Interburden addition did not significantly affect water clarity for slurries from poor
grade ores since the water clarity was already very poor. In all cases, more flocculant was required to take
the water clarity back to a similar level as the original ore.
SPE-170063-MS 9

Figure 11—Impact of Interburden Dilution on Water Clarity of Slurries from Ores Blended with Interburdens

Conclusions
In this study, it was found that adding up to 15% interburden did not always deteriorate ore processability.
Interburden dilution may boost the recovery for coarse grained ores, and depress the recovery for average
and low grade ores. The figures in section 3 indicate that the operationally defined maximum allowable
fraction of interburden in oil sand feed may be overly simplistic. They suggest that dilution to a maximum
fines content of the blend rather than to a maximum fraction of interburden in the blend may be more
appropriate. This new principle would allow for a greater proportion of interburden when blended with
an oil sand with very low fines contents. In particular, this study also shows that very coarse oil sands can
benefit from interburden dilution. This new principle can also help to prevent recovery losses by placing
a tighter restriction on blending with a relatively low quality oil sand.
TThe effect of adding interburden on tailings settling behaviors was also studied. The results show that
introducing interburden will slow down the settling rate, increase the flocculant dosage required to settle
the tailings slurry and make the water clarity worse no matter what kind of ores were processed.

Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Dean Wallace for valuable discussion regarding the work. The authors
thank Joslyn JV partners for permission to publish this work.

References
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2 Sanford E. C., 1983, the Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, vol. 61: 554 –567.
3 Masliyah, J. H., Czarnecki, J., and Xu, Z., 2011, Handbook on Theory and Practice of Bitumen
Recovery from Athabasca Oil Sands, Vol. 1: Theoretical Basis, Kingsley Knowledge Publishing.
4 Kotlyar, L. S., Kodama, B. D., 1984, AOSTRA Journal of Research, 1: 99 –106.
5 Kasongo, T., 2006, Role of Fine Clays and Ionic Species in Bitumen Extraction from Oil Sands
Ores Using the Hot Water Extraction Process, Ph. D dissertation, Edmonton, Alberta, U of A.
6 Yang, X, 2013, Investigation of the Impact of Clays and Heavy Minerals on Ore Processability
and Froth Quality, 2013 Clay Workshop Conference, Edmonton, Alberta, Feb., 20 –21.
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