Patents Assigned to Syncrude Canada Ltd.
  • Patent number: 11808397
    Abstract: A pipe assembly includes a pipe shell, a liner, and one or more anchor members. The pipe shell defines an inner wall. The liner lines the inner wall of the pipe shell and defines an inner wall of the pipe assembly. The anchor member is attached to the pipe shell, extends from the inner wall of the pipe shell, and is embedded within the liner. The anchor member may help to resist localized delamination of the liner from the pipe shell, and propagation of any localized delamination of the liner from the pipe shell. A related method is also provided for forming the pipe assembly.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 2, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Syncrude Canada Ltd. in trust for the owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventor: Soon Won Moon
  • Patent number: 11713812
    Abstract: A centrifugal hydraulic seal between the rotating and non-rotating components of rotating process equipment is provided. The centrifugal hydraulic seal reduces toxic gases inside an operating machine from escaping to the atmosphere or reduces gas from the atmosphere entering into the operating machine by the placement of protruding vanes on the face of the rotating seal wall on the low pressure side of the seal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 1, 2023
    Assignee: Syncrude Canada Ltd.
    Inventors: Andrew G. Sell, Jason P. Kachur
  • Patent number: 11679416
    Abstract: A screen cloth for use in a screening device for screening out oversize objects, including oil sands lumps and rocks present in an oil sands slurry is provided, comprising at least one screen segment having a top surface and having a plurality of openings therein; and a plurality of anti-wear tiles attached to the top surface of the at least one screen segment by brazing; whereby each anti-wear tile is separated from an adjacent anti-wear tile by a gap that is about 0.5 mm or less such that a brazing material used to attach the anti-wear tiles to the at least one support structure fills the gap between each anti-wear tile through capillary action thereby connecting each anti-wear tile to its adjacent anti-wear tile.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 5, 2022
    Date of Patent: June 20, 2023
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of th
    Inventors: Khaled Obaia, Hugh Roth
  • Patent number: 11624031
    Abstract: A screen cloth for use in a screening device for screening out oversize objects, including oil sand lumps and rocks, is disclosed comprising a supporting structure comprising two mutually opposing lateral attachment elements and a plurality of transverse stiffeners extending therebetween; and a plurality of screen segments, each screen segment having a plurality of openings, and each screen segment comprising a steel base and a plurality of anti-wear tiles attached thereon; whereby the plurality of screen segments are attached to the support structure to form a screening portion of the screen cloth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2021
    Date of Patent: April 11, 2023
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventor: Khaled Obaia
  • Patent number: 11590514
    Abstract: A process for treating and dewatering tailings comprising fine clay minerals, fine rock-forming minerals and water is provided, comprising treating the tailings with a sufficient amount of a collector to modify the surface properties of both the fine clays and rock-forming minerals; subjecting the treated tailings to froth flotation to form a fine clays and rock-forming minerals froth layer; and recovering the froth layer and subjecting it to dewatering.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2023
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD
    Inventors: Simon Yuan, James Lorentz, Ron Siman
  • Patent number: 11566183
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent present in froth treatment tailings, comprising introducing the tailings into a vessel; adding a first portion of steam into the vessel to form a vapour-tailings interface; and operating the vessel to increase the exposure of the tailings to the vapour-tailings interface formed in the vessel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 21, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2023
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventors: Sujit Bhattacharya, Craig McKnight, Salvador Escobedo Salas, Hugo deLasa
  • Patent number: 11461886
    Abstract: A method, related system and related computer program product are provided for monitoring wear of teeth of a drum of a double roll crusher. A processor receives a digital video capturing rotation of the drum and the teeth. For each frame of the digital video, the processor segments the frame into groups of contiguous pixels, wherein each group is representative of one of the teeth. The processor determines parameter indicative of a geometry of at least one of the teeth based on segmented groups of contiguous pixels in at least one of the frames of the digital video. The processor generates a human-readable report based on the parameter indicative of the geometry of the at least one of the teeth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Mark Polak, Dan Wolfe, Dustin Stuyt
  • Patent number: 11401113
    Abstract: A method, system and computer program product are provided for monitoring a transverse position of a conveyor belt or its material load. A processor receives a digital video or digital images capturing movement of the conveyor belt and the material load. The processor segments the images or frames into a group of contiguous pixels representative of the conveyor belt, and the material load, such as by moving object detection, using background segmentation and threshold processing, pixel intensity-based segmentation or image texture-based segmentation. The processor determines a pixel coordinate of the group of contiguous pixels, which is indicative of the transverse position of the conveyor belt or the material load. The processor generates an alarm or report or a data signal, which depends, directly or indirectly, on the determined pixel coordinates.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. IN TRUST FOR THE OWNERS OF
    Inventors: Mark Polak, Michael Carniato
  • Patent number: 11402070
    Abstract: A method for transporting a bitumen froth having coarse solids having a particle size>180 ?m through a pipeline is provided comprising injecting into the pipeline a bitumen froth slug having a lower temperature or a lower water content or both that the bitumen froth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 2, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. IN TRUST FOR THE OWNERS OF
    Inventors: Kevin Reid, Gary Anthieren, Sean Sanders, Jason Schaan
  • Patent number: 11365356
    Abstract: A process for forming a deaerated oil sand slurry is provided comprising: providing a first vessel having an overhead space and a bottom space; delivering oil sand and a low vapor pressure hydrocarbon liquid into the overhead space and mixing the oil sand and hydrocarbon liquid to release air trapped in the oil sand and form the deaerated slurry; optionally adding an inert gas stream to the overhead space to displace the air released from the oil sand; and collecting the deaerated slurry in the bottom space to form a slurry layer to prevent gas exchange between the first vessel and downstream extraction equipment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 15, 2020
    Date of Patent: June 21, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Xin Alex Wu, Michael Carniato
  • Patent number: 11333555
    Abstract: A method of quantifying at least one property of interest of an oil sands ore sample is provided using a laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) method. The property of interest may include bitumen content, water content, particle size information, cation exchange capacity, methylene blue index, mineralogical content (e.g., quartz, total clay, and clay components), amorphous material content, total ash content, and connate water parameter (e.g., conductivity, chloride content, or alkalinity).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 17, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Aïssa Harhira, Richard Paproski, Josette El Haddad, Mohamad Sabsabi, Alain Blouin
  • Patent number: 11268033
    Abstract: A method for controlling the solids distribution in a bitumen froth produced when processing an oil sands ore having a d50 of about 250 ?m or greater and a d90 of about 450 ?m or greater is provided comprising adding a high-fines material having a d50 of about 50 ?m or less and a fines content of about 40% of the solids or greater to the oil sands ore to form an ore blend; and processing the ore blend in a water-based bitumen extraction process to produce the bitumen froth.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of
    Inventors: Jun Long, Shane Hoskins, Kevin Reid
  • Patent number: 11261384
    Abstract: A method for recovering hydrocarbon diluent present in froth treatment tailings, comprising introducing the tailings into a vessel; adding a first portion of steam into the vessel to form a vapour-tailings interface; and operating the vessel to increase the exposure of the tailings to the vapour-tailings interface formed in the vessel.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 1, 2022
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventors: Sujit Bhattacharya, Craig McKnight, Salvador Escobedo Salas, Hugo deLasa
  • Patent number: 11248357
    Abstract: A method for recovering a sunken material from a body of water having a water layer and a sediment layer, the sunken material present at a water-sediment interface is presented, comprising using an impermeable hollow column and a high density fluid to float the sunken material to the top of the column for readily removal of the floated sunken material using surface material removing equipment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 15, 2022
    Assignee: Syncrude Canada Ltd. in Trust for the Owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventor: Trevor Finlayson
  • Patent number: 11186780
    Abstract: A method for extracting bitumen from an oil sands ore comprising swelling clays such as smectite is provided comprising blending said ore sands ore comprising swelling clays with a substantially swelling clays-free oil sands ore to give a blended oil sands ore having less than 1% swelling clays.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 18, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 30, 2021
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. IN TRUST FOR THE OWNERS OF THE SYNERUDE PROJECT AS SUCH OWNERS EXIST NOW AND IN
    Inventors: Jun Long, Dana Doyle, Adam Coffin
  • Patent number: 11098253
    Abstract: A method for extracting bitumen from an oil sand slurry involves limiting the size of rock and clay lumps in the slurry to a first size, conditioning the slurry in a pipeline, screening the slurry through a rotary screening apparatus to remove the lumps that are larger than a second size, and subjecting the slurry to gravity separation to separate the bitumen as a bitumen froth. A fastener assembly for securing a screen panel to a drum shell of a rotary screening apparatus includes an outer insert for insertion into an aperture of a drum shell, an inner insert for insertion through an aperture of the screen panel and into an inward facing pocket of the outer insert, and a bolt for securing together the outer and inner inserts. An insert for removable insertion into an aperture of a drum of a rotary screening apparatus defines a screening aperture.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2021
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Ron Cleminson, Dan Wolfe, Michael Carniato, Stefano Chiovelli
  • Patent number: 11098254
    Abstract: A method for processing bitumen froth comprised of bitumen, water and solids to produce a final diluted bitumen product having a reduced water content is provided whereby demulsifier is added to the bitumen froth after a first separation stage and prior to a second separation stage to produce the final diluted bitumen product having reduced water content.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 24, 2021
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. IN TRUST FOR THE OWNERS OF THE SYNCRUDE PROJECT AS SUCH OWNERS EXIST NOW AND IN THE FUTURE
    Inventors: Brian Knapper, Gary Anthieren, Sujit Bhattacharya, Tam Tran
  • Patent number: 10907103
    Abstract: A process for extracting bitumen from mined oil sand is provided, comprising: preparing an oil sand slurry comprising oil sand and water; conditioning the oil sand slurry by pumping the oil sand slurry through a hydrotransport pipeline under shear conditions that reduce the formation of water-in-bitumen emulsions in the conditioned oil sand slurry and increase the size of bitumen-air aggregates; and subjecting the conditioned oil sand slurry to gravity separation to produce a bitumen froth having enhanced bitumen recovery and reduced water-in-bitumen emulsions, a middlings layer and sand tailings.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 8, 2019
    Date of Patent: February 2, 2021
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD. in trust for the owners of the Syncrude Project as such owners exist now and in the future
    Inventors: Kevin Reid, Yin Ming Samson Ng, Barry Bara, Sujit Bhattacharya
  • Patent number: 10815066
    Abstract: A system for correcting transverse misalignment of a conveyor belt relative to a supporting pulley, includes a frame is pivotally attached to a stationary member. A guide surface engages the frame to guide pivoting of the frame about the pivot point simultaneously about a vertical axis and a longitudinally aligned axis. Idler rollers rotatably mounted on the frame define a rolling contact surface for the conveyor belt, which is concavely-shaped in a transversely-extending vertical plane. The pivoting of the frame causes the surface to impart a combined transverse pushing effect, torsional steering effect, and torsional tiling effect on the conveyor belt. An actuator applies a force to pivot the frame about the axis. A computer determines an amount of the misalignment based on a signal from a sensor, and automatically controls the actuator to pivot the frame, depending on the determined amount of the misalignment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventors: Michael Carniato, Dan Wolfe, Mark Polak, Yuxiang (Isaac) Wu, Soon Won Moon
  • Patent number: 10815061
    Abstract: A conveyor belt assembly includes an elastomer sheet, transversely spaced apart, longitudinally extending cords, and longitudinally spaced apart, transversely extending reinforcing blocks. The sheet has a top cover, and a bottom cover, and defines mutually longitudinal and transverse directions in the plane of the sheet. The cords and the blocks are embedded in the sheet between the top cover and the bottom cover. Each block encapsulates each of the cords in a transverse cross-section of the block. A method for making the conveyor belt assembly includes placing separate first and second portions of each block in abutting relationship with each other and around the cord, placing an uncured elastomer for forming the sheet around the cords and the block, and curing the elastomer for forming the sheet to form the sheet.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 27, 2020
    Assignee: SYNCRUDE CANADA LTD.
    Inventor: Soon Won Moon