Increasing the efficiency pf heavy-oil / bitumen recovery

随着“易开采石油”储量的枯竭，重/超稠油的开采对于世界未来的能源需求变得更加重要。 通过其自然能量从重油储层中采油是一个非常缓慢的过程，如果不是不可能的话，就像油砂/沥青的情况一样，并且留下的残余油通常超出经济极限。 因此，在许多情况下，必须对提高石油采收率（EOR）技术（如蒸汽、气体（通常是混溶的）或化学品注入）提供额外的支持。 虽然不断上涨的油价使我们能够将这种昂贵的材料注入油藏，但注入过程的效率一直是一个关键问题。 该项目提出了提高应用于稠油油藏的EOR技术效率的方法。

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.