Heavy oil mining technical and economic analysis
U.S. Department of Energy studies have indicated that the United States has produced only about one-third of its estimated reserves of heavy oil, primarily because this oil is unrecoverable by conventional production methods. One technology that shows promise for recovering these reserves is oil mining. Of three fundamental mining methods, surface extractive mining, underground extractive mining and underground mining for access, the surface extractive mining and underground mining for access methods appear to be technically feasible for oil recovery. Two heavy oil reservoirs are used as the basis for an economic evaluation of the two technically feasible mining methods. These two reservoirs were selected from an extensive list of heavy oil reservoirs in the United States based on a favorable combination of physical characteristics including depth, net pay thickness, oil saturation in barrels per acre, reservoir area, and total estimated reserves.
- Research Organization:
- Stone and Webster Eng. Co.
- OSTI ID:
- 6649042
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-840495-
- Journal Information:
- Soc. Pet. Eng. AIME, Pap.; (United States), Vol. SPE 12788; Conference: Society of Petroleum Engineers California regional meeting, Long Beach, CA, USA, 11 Apr 1984
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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RESOURCE ASSESSMENT
SURFACE MINING
THERMAL RECOVERY
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VISCOSITY
BITUMINOUS MATERIALS
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ECONOMICS
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