Heavy Oil Recovery & Geotailoring
Geotailoring provides clients not only with appropriate knowledge regarding the best recovery process to suit their needs but how to best place wells and operate the chosen process. The following information outlines the characteristics of an ideal recovery process.
- An ideal recovery process is tolerant of unpredictable geological heterogeneity, or geotolerant.
- An ideal recovery process is energy efficient, and
- An ideal recovery process has minimal environmental impact (i.e., low water usage and low emission of CO2 and other gases).
Currently, there is no magic-bullet for heavy oil recovery. Different methods provide different benefits to recovery operations.
- Example 1: Mining of bitumen is very geotolerant, as barriers do not hinder recovery, but mining has very poor energy efficiency and very high emissions and water usage.
- Example 2: SAGD thermal recovery has lower emissions but regularly fails or underperforms in vertically compartmentalized reservoirs with shale barriers.
Informed decisions making must occur when deciding which recovery method and operating strategy will best fit specific HOOS recovery efforts. With this in mind, the importance of having professional geotailoring consultation becomes obvious.
