Reserves of heavy crude oil and natural bitumen are estimated to be of the same order of magnitude as those of ‘conventional’ crude oil. The paper will provide a comprehensive analysis of known and ultimately recoverable heavy crude oil, extraheavy crude oil and natural bitumen reserves worldwide, with an assessment of heavy crude oil demand in the longer term future and a review of production techniques including new extraction and recovery technologies.
Les ressources en bitume et en huiles lourdes ont le même ordre de grandeur que celles en huiles légères et en huiles moyennement visqueuses. Cette communication fournira une analyse complète des réserves connues et les volumes d'huiles lourdes brutes, d'huiles extra-lourdes brutes et de bitumes naturels qui seront récupérables par la suite. Un examen des techniques de production, incluant les nouvelles technologies de récupération et d'extraction, est présenté. Une estimation de la demande en huile lourde brute à plus long terme est égaiement examinée.
In this paper we attempt to summarize the estimates of the reserves and future recovery volumes of heavy and extraheavy crude oils and natural bitumens. The data are divided by continental blocks with indication of the countries that contribute most.
Future recovery of heavy oil, extraheavy oil and natural bitumen add up to 1015 Billion Barrells, BB (161 Gigatonnes, GT). The countries that appear with the largest resources of these materials are Canada, U.S.S.R. and Venezuela. These three countries hold 87% of the World's reserves and 81% of the future recovery.
While the magnitude of heavy, extraheavy oil and bitumen resources is almost in the same order of magnitude as those of light and medium oil, their contribution to the world supply is less than 5%.
Emerging technology developments might change this picture in the near future: First, by increasing the recovery factors for heavy, extraheavy oil and bitumen, making these resources of even greater significance, and second, by reducing the cost of extracting, transporting, upgrading and/or transforming these vast volumes into products, thus making them more and more competitive with other forms of energy, such as coal, gas or conventional oil. 2. ANALYSIS OF RESOURCES In this report we have followed the crude oil classification and reserves definitions published by the Twelfth World Petroleum Congress (See Table I).
Table II was built from data published recently involving different sources and methods of calculation. In certain cases the figures were difficult to obtain, however we consider the general assessment a good approximation to reality. In this table heavy and extraheavy oil and natural bitumen are grouped, since both hydrocarbons are affected by the same
