Depending on the characteristics of your reservoir, cold enhanced oil recovery (EOR) production methods can provide a cost-effective recovery option.

There are many factors which can make your selection of the most appropriate recovery method for heavy oil a challenge. These include viscosity, reservoir complexity, environment, economics and refining.  

The solution is a combination of upfront engineering to analyze your field; engineering and design options; as well as reservoir and fluids characterization to understand the formation and oil characteristics throughout the reservoir. A  field evaluation enables you to decide on and simulate the well construction and completion options which best fit your reservoir. This is combined with access to accurate reservoir monitoring and control systems and technologies, which will help manage your wells.

How can you best navigate your way through the numerous possibilities, while minimizing expenditure and risk, maximizing long-term production, and ensuring that you make the right decisions for you and your asset?

Several cold EOR production methods offer recovery options for heavy oil:

Waterflood
One of the simplest EOR methods is waterflood-water injection. It is used to drive a front of heavy oil from one vertical well towards another vertical producing well.

Vapex (Vapor Extraction)

The basic design of a vapex well is similar to SAGD: two horizontal well pairs are spaced approximately 5 m apart. In Vapex wells a gas/solvent mix is injected into the reservoir through the upper well to stimulate gravity-enabled production in the lower well. This method has yet to be considered fully commercial but is an exciting technology development in heavy oil production.