Petrobank THAI oil process could more than double oil extraction from the oilsands

Petrobank gives its latest update on the Toe Heal Air Injection (THAI) oil recovery process and on multi-stage frac drilling advances It appears that it will take until 2015 to prove this technology out at 100,000 barrel per day volumes. So this will not have significant impact on oil supplied until after 2020. The multistage frac technique that is making the Bakken oil and similar formations productive will have more actual oil production until about 2025-2030. Full production from the Bakken and similar formations in world could produce several million barrels of oil per day by 2025. The THAI process increases oil from heavy oil and oilsands but it is not clear how rapidly it can be built out. THAI might double or quadruple the rate of ramping up of oilsand production. Oilsand production with current methods might ramp up at 2 million barrels per day every 10-15 years. Increasing the speed with which you can ramp up oilsand production will help to offset peak oil decline. Doubling available oil from oilsands to 400 billion barrels could delay peak oil by over ten years or extend a peak oil plateau.

Demonstrated THAI ® Benefits
* Higher resource recovery
* Larger exploitable resource
* Higher recovery: 70‐80% of oil in place
* Superior economics
* Lower capital cost: no steam and water handling facilities, 1 horizontal well
* Lower operating cost: negligible natural gas & minimal water handling
* Higher netbacks: partially upgraded product
* Faster project p j execution time: less facilities
* Enhanced energy efficiency: generate power from produced gas
* Lower environmental impact
* No net impact on water resources; net usable water producer
* Smaller surface footprint
* Partially upgraded oil requiring less refining
* 50% less greenhouse gas emissions from production to refining
* CO2 capture‐ready technology

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