skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Heavy oil and tar sands recovery and upgrading: international technology

Book ·
OSTI ID:6545339

This book provides an in-depth assessment of international technology for the recovery and upgrading of heavy crude oil and tar sands. The technologies included are currently in use, under development, or planned; emphasis is placed on post-1978 activities. The heavy oil technologies and processes considered in Part I include methods relating to the exploitation of heavy oil reservoirs, such as production from undergorun workings, all types of improved or enhanced recovery, subsurface extraction, and well rate stimulation. Furthermore, even though heavy crudes are understood to include only those liquid or semiliquid hydrocarbons with a gravity of 20/sup 0/API or less, technology applied to lighter crude oils with in situ viscosities of the same order of magnitude as some US heavy oils is also included. The scope of the tar sands section (Part II) includes sizing the resource base and reviewing and evaluatin past, present, and planned research and field developments on processes for mining, producing, extracting, and upgrading very heavy oils recovered from tar sands, e.g., bitumen recovery from tar sands where primary production was impossible because of the oil's high viscosity. On the production side, very heavy oil is defined as having a gravity less than 10/sup 0/ to 12/sup 0/API and greater than 100,000-centipoise viscosity at 50/sup 0/F. On the upgrading side, hydrocarbons whose characteristics dictated additional processing prior to conventional refining into salable products (1050+/sup 0/ material) were included, regardless of origin, in order to encompass all pertinent upgrading technologies.

OSTI ID:
6545339
Report Number(s):
DOE/NBM-3005894; ON: DE83005894
Resource Relation:
Related Information: Energy technology review No. 78
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English