
History of use

In ancient times the Elamites, Chaldeans, Akkadians, and Sumerians mined shallow deposits of asphalt, or bitumen, for their own use. Mesopotamian bitumen was exported to Egypt where it was employed for various purposes, including the preservation of mummies. The Dead Sea was known as Lake Asphaltites (from which the term asphalt was derived) because of the lumps of semisolid petroleum that were washed up on its shores from underwater seeps.

Bitumen had many other uses in the ancient world. It was mixed with sand and fibrous materials for use in the construction of watercourses and levees and as mortar for bricks. It was widely used for caulking ships and in road building. Bitumen also was employed for bonding tools, weapons, and mosaics and in inlaid work and jewel setting. In various areas it was used in paints and for waterproofing baskets and mats. Artistic and religious objects were carved from bitumen-impregnated sands, and the mining of rock asphalt was an important industry.

Centuries later, during the age of exploration, Sir Walter Raleigh found the famous “Pitch Lake” deposits in Trinidad. The Dutch made similar discoveries in Java and Sumatra.

Potential as a crude oil source

In response to thermal recovery methods, world production of heavy oil exceeds 1 ,000,000 million barrels per day, or roughly 2 percent of the total world oil output. In the United States approximately 6 percent of total oil production is derived from heavy oil fields. The production of synthetic oil from the bitumen in tar sands is limited to Alberta, Can., and amounts to about 250,000 barrels per day.

Yet, the development of heavy oil and bitumen reserves is increasing around the world. The increasing volume of cheaper heavy oil in the supply mix has provided an incentive for refiners to upgrade their equipment to process the poorer-quality heavier crudes. The upgrading investments have helped to maintain a demand for heavy oil in spite of the declining price of conventional crudes since the early 1980s. As the demand for heavy oil and syncrude from tar sands remains strong, heavy-hydrocarbon development projects are being initiated in several parts of the world. In addition, unsuccessful attempts to find new giant conventional oil fields in recent years has caused some producers to turn to the marginally economic heavy hydrocarbons to replace depleted reserves.

Composition and origin
Chemical composition

Geochemical analyses indicate that the heavy hydrocarbons are composed primarily of asphaltenes, resins, and metals (most commonly vanadium and nickel). The nature of individual heavy oil deposits varies widely as they are rarely chemically homogeneous. Bitumen distribution in a deposit also varies, depending on the permeability and porosity of the reservoir rock.


Nearly all the deposits of heavy hydrocarbons are degraded remnants of accumulations of conventional oils. Degradation begins when oil migrates toward the surface and encounters descending meteoric water (rainwater or any other water of atmospheric origin) containing oxygen and bacteria at temperatures below 93° C93 °C (about 200 °F). A tarlike material is formed at the oil-water contact, and it eventually invades the entire oil accumulation. A process known as “water washing” removes the more water-soluble light hydrocarbons, particularly the aromatics. Biodegradation preferentially removes the normal paraffins. Heavy hydrocarbon accumulations may represent as little as 10 percent of the original conventional oil. They contain asphaltenes, resins, sulfur, and such metals as vanadium and nickel, which results in an increase in density. These apparently are the residues of a natural concentrating process and were not contributed by other sources. Thus, the deposits were emplaced as medium-gravity crudes, which later became immobilized by degradation in the reservoir. Some of the heavy oils, however, appear thermally immature and therefore may be unaltered.

The geologic environment

Almost all the heavy hydrocarbon deposits have been found in formations of Cretaceous, Paleogene, and Neogene age (about 2,588,000 to 145,500,000 146 million to 2.6 million years old). The exceptions include some deposits in Alberta, Can., and in Russia. In Alberta bituminous Paleozoic carbonates unconformably underlie Mesozoic rocks (the Paleozoic Era began about 540,000,000 542 million years ago and lasted until the beginning of the Mesozoic Era, roughly 245,000,000 251 million years ago). In Russia most of the heavy hydrocarbons occur in strata dating back to the Paleozoic Era and earlier (i.e., the late Precambrian, which ended about 540,000,000 542 million years ago). Some heavy hydrocarbons are found in Paleogene and Neogene rocks in Central Asia.

The most prolific heavy hydrocarbon reservoir sediments are sandstones that were originally deposited in fluvial and deltaic, nearshore environments. The exceptions are the bituminous carbonate rocks of Alberta, Russia, and Central Asia. Smaller deposits of asphaltic carbonate rocks are common, notably in the Middle East and in Italy. Many heavy oil reservoirs have been found offshore beneath the continental shelves of Africa and North and South America. In addition, heavy hydrocarbons have been discovered beneath the Caspian, Mediterranean, Adriatic, Red, Black, North, Beaufort, and Caribbean seas, as well as beneath the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Mexico.

World distribution of heavy oils and tar sands
Commercially viable deposits
Heavy oil

California accounts for nearly all of the thermally recovered heavy oil in the United States. The largest of the California heavy oil fields is Midway-Sunset, with an ultimate recovery estimated at slightly more than 2 ,000,000,000 billion barrels. Almost as large is the Kern River field, projected to ultimately produce slightly less than 2 ,000,000,000 billion barrels. Two other California fields, Wilmington and South Belridge, are estimated to have originally contained more than 1 ,000,000,000 billion barrels of recoverable heavy oil. There are five additional heavy oil fields estimated to have initially contained more than 500 ,000,000 million barrels.

Four of the world’s largest oil fields, the supergiants Al-Burqān in Kuwait, Kirkuk in Iraq, Abū Saʿfah in Saudi Arabia (see Figure 2in the article petroleum), and the Bolivar Coastal field in Venezuela, contain and have produced very large amounts of heavy oil in addition to conventional oils. Giant fields producing heavy oil include Zubair in Iraq; Duri in Indonesia; Gudao and Karamai in China; Seria in Brunei; Bacab, Chac, and Ebano-Panuco in Mexico; Belayim Land in Egypt; Maydan Mahzam in Qatar; and Uzen and Zhetybay in Kazakhstan.

Some heavy oil fields have been found to be associated with giant gas fields. These include the Bressay, Clair, and Ekofisk gas fields of the North Sea and the Russkoye gas field of Russia (see Figure 3 in the article petroleum).

The Table shows world recoverable reserves, undiscovered resources, and total heavy oil endowment by region, as modified from U.S. Geological Survey estimates. Approximately one-half of the world’s original heavy oil endowment is thought to have originally existed in the Western Hemisphere. This is due to the enormous heavy oil deposits concentrated in a belt 700 kilometres long by 60 kilometres wide along the Orinoco River in eastern Venezuela.

The Middle East has 36 percent of the world’s heavy oil endowment, followed by the United States with 11 percent and Russia with 6 percent. Russia, however, may have large deposits of heavy oil not referenced in available Western technical literature and thus may rank higher in heavy oil resources.

Tar sands

Tar sand deposits occur predominantly in the Western Hemisphere (see Table, as modified from U.S. Geological Survey estimates). Three-quarters of the total world endowment of bitumen is estimated to occur in the Athabasca region of western Canada. The only two existing commercial bitumen-synthetic oil facilities are located in the Athabasca River valley of Alberta. One-fifth of the world’s bitumen is thought to be in Russia, mostly in the Volga-Urals and Siberian regions.

Status of the world’s supply

The world’s total original endowment of recoverable heavy oil has been estimated at about 467,500,000,000 .5 billion barrels. Of this amount, only 14 percent has been produced (about 67,400,000,000 .4 billion barrels) and only 20 percent (about 93 ,000,000,000 billion barrels) is thought to remain undiscovered. Accordingly, there is a known recoverable reserve of approximately 307 ,000,000,000 billion barrels, which can be compared with medium and light oil reserves of 1,119,000,000,000 .119 trillion barrels. As world oil production continues, the future concentration of conventional crude oil will increasingly favour the Middle East. Thus, the heavy oil resources, especially those of the Western Hemisphere and Russia, will continue to be exploited. The Middle East, too, has very significant heavy oil resources and has produced more heavy oil than any other region of the world. Such production also is expected to increase.

The world’s total original endowment of recoverable bitumen has been estimated at about 354 ,000,000,000 billion barrels. Very little of this has so far been mined for upgrading to syncrude. Hence, the world’s total recoverable heavy hydrocarbon component is about 661 ,000,000,000 billion barrels, compared with 1,119,000,000,000 .119 trillion barrels of medium and light crude oils. If undiscovered resources are added, the heavy hydrocarbons total 754 ,000,000,000 billion barrels and the light and medium oils 1,666,000,000,000 .666 trillion barrels. Some 2,420,000,000,000 .42 trillion barrels of crude oil remain from an original world endowment of 3,211,000,000,000 .211 trillion barrels, and heavy hydrocarbons make up almost one-third of the remaining world crude oil resources.

Recovery and exploitation
Heavy oils

The recovery of heavy crude oils is impeded by a viscous resistance to flow at reservoir temperatures. The heating of heavy crudes markedly improves their mobility and promotes their recovery. Heat may be introduced into the reservoir by injecting a hot fluid, such as steam or hot water, or by burning some of the heavy oil in the reservoir (a process referred to as in situ combustion or fire flooding).

Steam soak

A common method involving the use of steam to recover heavy oil is known as steam soak, or steam cycling. It is essentially a well-bore stimulation technique in which steam generated in a boiler at the surface is injected into a production well for a number of weeks, after which the well is closed down for several days before being put back into production. In many cases there is a significant increase in output. It is sometimes economic to steam-soak the same well several times, even though heavy oil recovery usually declines with each succeeding treatment. Steam soaks are economically effective only in thick permeable reservoirs in which vertical (gravity) drainage can occur.

Steam flooding

Continuous steam injection heats a larger portion of the reservoir and achieves the most efficient heavy oil recoveries. Known as steam flooding, this technique is a displacement process similar to waterflooding. Steam is pumped into injection wells, which in some cases are artificially fractured to increase reservoir permeability, and the oil is displaced to production wells. Because of the relatively high cost of steam, water is sometimes injected at an optimum time to push the steam toward the production wells. Because the steam serves two functions, the heating and the transporting of the oil, some steam must always be circulated through the rock formation without condensing. Even in some of the most favourable reservoirs, it is necessary to consume an amount of energy equivalent to burning roughly 25 to 35 percent of the heavy oil produced in order to generate the required amount of steam.

In situ combustion

The mechanics of heavy oil displacement in an in situ combustion operation is similar to that in the steam-flooding process except for one difference. Unlike in the latter, steam is produced by vaporizing water already in the rock formation or water that has been injected therein with heat from the in situ combustion of some of the oil in the reservoir. After the in-place heavy oil has been ignited, the burning front is moved along by continuous air injection. In one variation of the in situ combustion process known as forward combustion, air is injected into a well so as to advance the burning front and heat and displace both the oil and formation water to surrounding production wells. A modified form of forward combustion incorporates the injection of cold water along with air to recover some of the heat that remains behind the combustion front. The air-water combination minimizes the amount of air injected and the amount of in-place oil burned (to between 5 and 10 percent). In another variation of in situ combustion called reverse combustion, a short-term forward burn is initiated by air injection into a well that will eventually produce oil, after which the air injection is switched to adjacent wells. This process is used for recovering extremely viscous oil that will not move through a cold zone ahead of a forward-combustion front.

The costs associated with the generation of heat within a heavy oil reservoir and the success of the recovery process are influenced by the depth of the reservoir. In general, shallower reservoirs are candidates for steam soaks and steam floods, deeper reservoirs for in situ combustion.

Solvent extraction


Tar sands

The bitumen in tar sands can be recovered by surface mining. Open-pit mining methods can be employed where thick deposits occur near the surface. Earth-moving equipment is used to strip and stockpile the topsoil, remove and dispose of the overburden, and excavate the tar sand. The recovery efficiency of surface mining tar sands is estimated at roughly 90 percent. A mill is required to separate the bitumen from the sand in order to upgrade it to commercial quality. This process includes crushing the tar sand and separating the bitumen by mixing the crushed ore with steam and hot water. The bitumen is concentrated by floating and is then treated with a solvent for final separation from the sand and water. The cleaned crude bitumen is upgraded in a delayed coking unit, which produces a blend of lighter hydrocarbon fractions that yield synthetic crude oil, naphtha, kerosene, and gas oil. While there are a large number of heavy oil fields in production throughout the world, only two commercial tar sand surface-mining and synthetic-oil processing operations exist. Both are in western Canada.

Economic and technical constraints

Unfortunately, there are problems associated with the exploitation of heavy hydrocarbons. Costs for tar sand mining and upgrading are considerably higher than for producing conventional oil, even in most frontier areas. The tar sand that is mined and milled along with the bitumen is very abrasive and causes rapid wear of equipment. Also, mills and upgrading (coking) facilities are very expensive.

Likewise, the heavy oils are a less desirable energy resource than the lighter crudes, for they are much more costly to extract and to process. An average of about one barrel of oil is combusted (or its energy equivalent expended) to produce the heat necessary to net two barrels of recovered heavy oil. This reduces the recoverable oil in a heavy oil reservoir by one-third.

If the heavy oil is transported by pipeline, direct heating is often required before it will flow at an acceptable rate, necessitating the combustion of additional fuel. The refining of heavy oil results in low yields of distillate products (e.g., naphtha, kerosene, jet fuel, gasoline, oil, and diesel) and correspondingly high yields of sulfur and high-viscosity residues (e.g., asphalt and coke) with metals concentrated in them.

Even under thermal stimulation, heavy oil production ranges only from about 5 to 100 barrels per day per well. This can be compared with recoveries in giant conventional oil fields on the order of 10,000 barrels per day per well. Consequently, even though heavy oil fields are exploited at much slower rates than conventional fields, many more wells are still required. This considerably increases development costs.