Operating Strategy for Electromagnetic-based Thermal Recovery Method

Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world, mostly in oil sands located in the northern Alberta, which is estimated to be 166 billion barrels. Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) has been the only commercially viable in-situ recovery method available to date. Application of SAGD is known to be energy intensive and has associated environmental impacts. Electromagnetic heating (EMH) has been the focus of ever-increasing theoretical and experimental studies to examine if it can be used to heat up the geomaterials in field scale. Bitumen recovery using EMH technique assisted by solvent injection such as ESEIEH pilot in currently being conducted in the Athabasca oil sands, utilizes radio frequency waves to generate a moderate amount of heat. In this study, the development of a robust operating procedure based on the geological heterogeneity and interstitial water mobility is sought. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Hassan Hassanzadeh

Student:

Asghar Sadeghi

Partner:

CNOOC Petroleum North America ULC

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Oil and gas

University:

Program: