Wescorp Energy Inc has announced it has received a request by Saudi Aramco to test the Ellycrack heavy oil upgrader technology being developed by the Wescorp-Ellycrack A/S joint-venture.

The request will have Aramco shipping a quantity of heavy oil to the joint-venture test plant in Trondheim, Norway for upgrading under various conditions using Ellycrack's patented high intensive catalytic cracking process.
The Ellycrack A/S Viscositor is an environmentally-friendly upgrader process which operates at lower temperatures and pressures than current processes to raise the API gravity of heavy oil to targeted levels. As a result the technology uses considerably less external energy and does away with the extensive water pollution by-products that are produced by other upgrader solutions.
In keeping with Wescorp's objective to supply leading edge environmentally-friendly technologies that provide users a significant economic advantage, Ellycrack A/S Viscositor is also a very cost effective solution relative to the normally more expensive upgrader processes available today.
The test is to demonstrate Ellycrack's capacity to raise API gravities on location in a cost-effective, energy-efficient manner as part of Aramco's global petroleum technology assessment programme.
"Wescorp is delighted to be working with Aramco," stated Wescorp CEO Doug Biles. "While this test has no immediate commercial implications, it does suggest the demand for effective heavy oil technologies is becoming acute.
"With up to 70 per cent of the world's oil being heavy oil, and as conventional reserves continue to decline, it stands to reason that oil producers around the world are looking for cost-effective ways to exploit these heavy oil deposits. We look forward to demonstrating Ellycrack's capabilities to Aramco in their quest to find effective upgrader technologies."
Wescorp is a venture capital firm specialising in the acquisition, of strategic pre-commercial energy infrastructure technologies and taking them through the development and on to the marketing stages. Headquartered in Calgary, Wescorp has the industry relationships, management expertise and resources needed to introduce innovative profitable solutions to the global energy production and service markets.