Monday, November 13

The global nature of the heavy oil industry was clearly evident today at the first full day of the WHOC. Monday saw the launch of the business program at the Beijing conference. Bob Lockwood of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, keynote speaker, suggested to the local and international audience that Asia’s role in world energy supply could soon be augmented as favorable economic and technological factors converge.

An overview of and introduction to the status of heavy oil exploration in China followed immediately, delivered by Mr. Chengzao, vice president of PetroChina and academician of Chinese Academy of Science.

Throughout the rest of the day, the entire value chain from formation to forecourt was covered in some detail. Discussion topics covered upgrading, transporting, and refining with information from the USA, Canada, and Venezuela included in the proceedings.

The afternoon session outlined the status of several heavy oil–producing areas. Both Alberta Saskatchewan projects were covered for Canada, with land and offshore summaries presented for China. Presentations on Brazil and Venezuela also served to underline the truly global nature and importance of this conference.

The final sessions of the day covered strategic planning for heavy oil. Doug Pferdehirt of Schlumberger outlined how service companies can assist in the development and implementation of technologies for heavy oil and what role these technologies can play in the future of the industry.  (more….)

The final presentation of the conference suggested that heavy oil has the potential to bring in new players and open new markets for the world energy industry, with certain aspects of pricing and supply being the risk factors considered in the equation.

Luis Vierma, vice president E&P Petroleos de Venezuela S.A., summarized the day’s events with a succinct list of general challenges, opportunities, and key factors for the industry to address in the future.

General challenges included increasing the recovery factor of heavy oil fields. Vierma suggested that using new technologies for upstream and downstream, combined with the skilled personnel and investment in the heavy oil industry infrastructure, would partially serve to meet this challenge. In addition, the challenges for supply of both gas and gas condensate were raised, along with adequate and suitable alternatives for the future.  Product quality was highlighted as a key concern, especially for addressing pricing differentials. The challenge of downstream infrastructure saturation and the logistics of transport and feedstock changes also play a role in the overall challenges of the industry. Finally, he underlined the need to mitigate environmental concerns, especially that of CO2.

These challenges were tempered with some optimistic opportunities for the industry: large resources, an increasing global demand for energy and, with it, the development of new markets for heavy oil products in Asia, USA, and South America. With long-term favorable price scenarios and consistent development of new technologies to address some of the challenges of heavy oil production, Vierma summarized that there is a great deal of optimism for the industry.  He also emphasized the need for the industry as a whole to achieve success within a framework of socially and economically sustainable development around the world.

To complete the summary of the day’s topics, Vierma proposed key factors that could ultimately serve to achieve the future success of the heavy oil industry:

• international cooperation among all the major players and resource holders
• continued investment of capital for heavy oil–specific projects both upstream and downstream
• support from the development of new technologies appropriate to the needs of heavy oil
• training and education of the people needed to guide this valuable resource into the future.