Bitumen and thermal recovery from oil sand tailings

A. process for recovering heat and bitumen from a conditioned oil sand slurry, comprising the following steps in series:

• introducing the conditioned oil sand slurry into a primary separation vessel to foam a top layer of primary bitumen froth, a middle layer of middlings including primarily warm water, fines and residual bitumen and a bottom layer of primary tailings including primarily coarse solids, warm water and residual bitumen;
• delivering the middlings to one or more primary flotation device to separate at least a portion of the bitumen from the warm water and fines to produce a secondary bitumen froth and secondary tailings including primarily fines, warm water and bitumen;
• mixing the secondary tailings with the primary tailings to produce a pooled tailings fraction;
• screening out at least a portion of larger coarse solids from the pooled tailings fraction to produce a screened tailings fraction;
• feeding the screened tailings fraction to one or more hydrocyclone to remove at least a portion of smaller coarse solids to produce a smaller coarse solids fraction comprising about 20 wt % of the warm water and a reduced solids tailings fraction including primarily fines, about 80 wt % of the warm water and bitumen;
• delivering the reduced solids tailings to one or more secondary flotation device to separate the reduced solids tailings fraction into no more than two fractions to produce a bitumen fraction and a warm water and fines fraction;
• and
• feeding the warm water and fines fraction into one or more thickener to remove at least a portion of the fines from the warm water and fines fraction to produce cleaned warm water and a concentrated fines fraction.