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Thermal methods, particularly steamdrive and steam soak, are the most successful enhanced-oil-recovery (EOR) processes. They are certainly the most mature. In Chapter 1, we saw that steam methods currently account for approximately one-half the EOR in the United States. Thermal flooding is commercially successful and has been for almost 50 years. In this chapter, we explore the reasons for this success.

Despite the success—billions of barrels have been recovered by this type of EOR—even more hard-to-recover oil remains. Meyer and Attanasi (2003) report that recoverable heavy oil and bitumen resources are almost 1,000 billion barrels, or approximately twice the amount of recoverable light oil. Much of this target is beyond the limits of current technology; hence, thermal methods are constantly evolving to meet these challenges. This chapter touches on these new technologies.

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