Low salinity water flooding of Heavy oil reservoirs

To a common man, the famous fear about Petroleum - the most lucrative natural resource - known to man yet is its eventual exhaustion. Perhaps also, many oil and gas professionals concede that the days of conventional (light and medium) oil production are numbered, afterall there are no evidences that oil is being currently reproduced. But interestingly, the global energy industry is yet to produce 15% of proven petroleum reservoirs. With over 6 trillion barrels of oil in place worldwide, heavy oil hydrocarbons account for up to 80% of the global petroleum natural resources, more than triple the amount of conventional reserves. However, exploration and production from conventional oil fields outdoes their counterparts by virtue of less troublesome oil properties and less field development challenges. This work presents a low-cost, low-carbon footprint recovery technique to harness heavy oil reserves. This begins with an extensive literature review which shed more light on the technique's underlying mechanism. Results from technical and economical feasibility studies will undoubtedly encourage heavy oil producers to consider this approach in subsequent field development programs.