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A comment on Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport Alberta oil. Parent comment

Re:Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport A... by tiku on Thursday September 07, 2017 @04:30AM (#15189990)
I guess it's reusable after the oil is extracted, so it can be send back?
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Re:Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport A... by pjc50 on Thursday September 07, 2017 @04:52AM (#15190074)
It is the oil. The bitumen is cracked into lighter fractions like gasoline.

(The other current method of transporting bitumen is to dilute it with naptha, which has to be sent back to the extraction site in order to be used with the next lot of bitumen)

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Re:Bitumen balls could be a pipeline-free way to transport A... by jacquesm on Thursday September 07, 2017 @05:31AM (#15190225)
Oil comes in many 'fractions', the heavier fractions are the ones like what this article is about (bitumen), the lighter ones are crude, gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and gas forms.

Crackers (in oil refineries) take as input a heavier fraction and then break apart and sort the molecules by length giving various different outputs which can then be used in different applications.

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