Canada

Innovation is required, but it is not a super-power allowing engineers to effortlessly vaporize long-standing challenges.

SPE conferences in Calgary examine the challenges of finding and producing heavy oil and unconventional hydrocarbons at a time when Canadian producers are feeling exceptional price pressures.

Shell has reaffirmed its commitment to the shale business and views it as a growth opportunity moving into the 2020s

The addition of a hydrocarbon condensate to steam operations in heavy-oil and bitumen reservoirs has emerged as a potential technology to improve not only oil recovery but also energy efficiency.

Chemical enhanced-oil-recovery methods such as polymer and alkaline/surfactant/polymer (ASP) flooding are generally not considered suitable for oil viscosities greater than 100 or 200 cp.

A growing chorus of suppliers, researchers, and service companies is persuading US operators to re-examine their use of slickwater in shale plays and consider displacing it with carbon dioxide and nitrogen.

Some operators are returning to their North American mature unconventional shale wells to refracture, or restimulate, the rock to accelerate production and enhance ultimate recoveries.

This paper presents a concept for recovery in Canadian oil sands that uses water injection to condition a reservoir interval sufficiently to relieve the overburden stress on the oil sand and increase its porosity and permeability.

The rapid growth of progressing cavity pumps is an example of how new uses continue to emerge for older technology.

Concerns have been expressed and published about the amount of water used in Canada’s oil-sands industry.