Heavy oil and bitumen represent a very large share of remaining global oil in place, concentrated in a small number of provinces. The resource is not difficult to find and the geology is often simple. The difficulty is entirely in mobility: at reservoir temperature the oil is too viscous to flow to a well at any useful rate, and in the case of bitumen it will not flow at all. Every recovery process is therefore an attempt to change that condition in place.

Heat is the dominant answer because oil viscosity falls extremely rapidly with temperature, frequently by two or three orders of magnitude over a hundred degrees. Delivering that heat into the reservoir and keeping it there is the engineering problem. Steam carries a large latent heat and condenses at the steam front, which makes it efficient, but heat is also lost to overburden, underburden and to any water-bearing interval that will accept it. Steam assisted gravity drainage exploits this by using a steam chamber that grows upward and allows heated oil to drain by gravity to a lower horizontal producer, which converts the process from a displacement problem to a drainage problem and largely removes the mobility ratio difficulty.

The consequences run through everything. Recovery factors under successful thermal projects can exceed those of conventional waterfloods. Capital cost is dominated by steam generation and water treatment rather than by wells. Operating cost is dominated by fuel, and the steam-to-oil ratio becomes the single most important performance measure, determining both economics and emissions. Reservoir quality requirements are unusual: continuous thickness matters more than permeability, and a thin shale in the wrong place can stop a steam chamber from developing. This course develops both the reservoir physics and the project judgement these processes require.

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

• Characterise heavy oil and bitumen systems including viscosity, composition and their temperature dependence
• Assess reservoir suitability for the available recovery processes including continuity and barrier effects
• Explain primary and cold production mechanisms including foamy oil behaviour and sand co-production
• Apply heat transfer principles in porous media to thermal recovery design
• Design and analyse cyclic steam stimulation operations and cycle performance
• Design and analyse steam flooding and steam assisted gravity drainage projects
• Calculate steam-to-oil ratio, thermal efficiency and energy balance for a thermal project
• Evaluate solvent, solvent-assisted and in-situ combustion processes and their applicability
• Specify well and completion design suitable for thermal and cold heavy oil service
• Assess the surface facility, water treatment, economic and environmental requirements of a heavy oil project

The course is delivered as a technical programme organised around recovery processes and the reservoir conditions each requires. Each process is developed from its physical mechanism through design parameters to field performance analysis, using data from operating heavy oil and bitumen projects. Case material covers cold production fields, cyclic steam operations, steam floods and steam assisted gravity drainage developments, including projects that underperformed because of reservoir continuity, heat loss or water handling issues. Energy balance and steam-to-oil ratio analysis run through the course as the measures that determine viability.

Organisations sending participants to this training will:

• Select recovery processes suited to the specific heavy oil resource rather than to an analogue
• Improve thermal project performance through better steam-to-oil ratio management
• Reduce the risk of committing to thermal projects in reservoirs that cannot support them
• Improve surveillance and steam chamber management in operating projects
• Assess heavy oil acquisition and development opportunities more reliably
• Manage the energy, water and emissions intensity that determine heavy oil viability

Participants will:

• Work heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs with methods suited to their physics
• Design and analyse thermal recovery operations
• Interpret thermal project performance and diagnose underperformance
• Assess reservoir suitability for cold, thermal and solvent processes
• Understand the facility, energy and water systems thermal recovery depends on
• Contribute technically to heavy oil development and operations

• Reservoir engineers working on heavy oil and bitumen assets
• Production engineers in heavy oil operations
• Thermal operations and steam injection engineers
• Facilities engineers supporting steam generation and water treatment
• Development geologists working heavy oil reservoirs
• Simulation engineers modelling thermal recovery processes

Upon successful completion of this training course, delegates will be awarded an official Certificate of Completion issued by the Petroleum Engineers Association (PEA), an ISO 9001:2015 certified training organization. The certificate carries 10 Credits and formally records the total learning hours completed.

Each certificate is signed by the Course Facilitator and the CEO of the Petroleum Engineers Association, and serves as verifiable proof of professional training that delegates can present to employers and professional bodies worldwide.