Increasing the efficiency pf heavy-oil / bitumen recovery

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As "easy oil" reserves are depleted, recovery of heavy/ultra-heavy oil becomes more crucial for world's future energy demand. Oil recovery from heavy oil reservoirs by its natural energy is a very slow process, if not impossible like in the cases of oil sands/bitumen, and the residual oil left behind is generally beyond the economic limits. Therefore, additional support of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques such as steam, gas (typically miscible), or chemical injections are must in many circumstances. Although increasing oil prices enable us to inject such expensive materials into oil reservoirs, the efficiency of the injection processes has always been a critical issue. This project proposes investigations on the ways to increase the efficiency of EOR techniques applied to heavy-oil reservoirs.