Short Course in Heavy Oil/ Bitumen Properties
Day 1 – PVT Properties
1. Sampling Heavy Oils and Bitumen
2. Characterization of Heavy Oils and Bitumen
3. Measurement of Rheological Properties:
i. Density
ii. Viscosity
iii. Emulsions
iv. Foamy Oils
4. Thermal and Solvent Dependencies
i. Steam distillation
ii. Solvent assisted dependencies
iii. K values and Flash Calculations
Day 2 – Fluid Flow
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
A review of Flow in Porous Media
Porous Media sampling and Characterization
Measurement of Relative Permeability
Foamy Oil Characterization
Thermal Solvent-Assisted Flow
A few exercises will accompany the course presentation so the students should come with a calculator
and pen/ paper. The venue, snacks and lunch would be provided by Company. The time of the course
would be from 8:30 AM to 4:00 PM daily with one hour lunch.
Dr. F. Brent Thomas, P. Eng. was with Hycal Energy Research from 1981 until 2004 and has world-wide
experience in reservoir fluid phase behavior and EOR. Since 2004, Brent has been employed with
Weatherford Laboratories as Director of Phase Behavior and EOR Research. Brent has taught courses
on a variety of topics, world-wide, over the last twenty years. He was a distinguished lecturer for SPE
International and a distinguished author for the JCPT.