Bituminous sands and viscous crude oils

Bituminous sandstones of the Rocky Mountain region contain large reserves of low gravity, highly viscous oil that can be recovered at costs equal to or less than the cost of finding and producing oil from conventional methods. Heavy crude oil is defined as "oil which cannot be produce through the normal reservoir mechanisms of gas expansion or water drive due to the low gravity and the high viscosity of the crude." Today the American oil industry is in the process of a revolution of such magnitude that its implications are yet to be understood thoroughly. This is the "Quiet Revolution," which will double the proven oil reserves of the world within the next ten years, and will more than triple those reserves by the year 2060. The "Quiet Revolution" is the engineering application of thermal recovery to (1) low gravity, viscous crude oils heretofore unrecoverable by conventional and secondary recovery techniques and to (2) tremendous reserves of bituminous sandstones. This paper will show what thermal recovery is, how and when it can best be applied, and what its implication are to the oil industry and especially to the Rocky Mountain region. A brief discussion is given of two major areas of bituminous sandstone deposits in the State of Utah. U.S. recoverable crude oil reserves at the beginning of 1963 stood at 31.4 billion barrels. This reserve figure is computed on the basis of a recovery of 2970 of the original crude oil in place. If the recovery rate could be increased to 60%, then we could double the present reserve estimates. Many oil companies now believe that this will be possible through the use of thermal recovery methods, especially since more than one-third of these reserves exist in reservoirs at depths less than 3000 feet where porosities and permeabilities tend to be high.