Slurrified Heavy Oil Reservoir Extraction (SHORE): A non-thermal, recovery method

Abstract The oil sands of Canada are a rich resource whose extraction faces many challenges. The most common processes for recovering in situ resources (i.e. too deep to mine) involve heating the reservoir to reduce the heavy oil or bitumen viscosity to allow it to flow to wellbores where it can be produced. This paper presents an alternate concept for recovery of these resources that does not require heat to mobilize the bitumen and that is especially well suited to reservoirs that are too thin or too geologically complex for economic thermal recovery. The process utilizes water injection to "condition" a reservoir interval sufficiently to relieve the overburden stress on the oil sand and increase its porosity and permeability. Establishing a pressure gradient between a set of injector and producer wells allows the production of a bitumen-sand-water slurry as the pressure gradient established overcomes the friction holding the reservoir sand in place. This produced slurry is then processed at the surface to extract the bitumen and the cleaned tailings are re-injected back into the reservoir to aid in the sweep of the in situ sand, support the overburden, and dispose of the tails. We have developed a first principles numerical model of the process that fully accounts for fluid flow and sand flow under reservoir conditions to simulate and understand the process. We have also developed a large scale (2 meter diameter sand pack) laboratory system to demonstrate the technical feasibility of the process under reservoir conditions. The technology is still in the early stages of development, but the laboratory and numerical modeling efforts demonstrate promising technical potential of the process at a field-scale. The ability of the process to work in thinner and more geologically complex reservoirs than other in situ processes, and with lower CO2 and surface footprints than thermal and mining processes, could make this an attractive alternative recovery process for shallow to intermediate depth, in situ bitumen resources.