Oil Sands and Heavy Oil:
Origin and Exploitation
Stephen R. Larter1 and Ian M. Head2
1811-5209/14/0010-277$2.50 DOI: 10.2113/gselements.10.4.277
O
il sands are a mixture of bitumen (a very viscous, heavily biode-
graded crude oil), unconsolidated sand, and water bound together by
the bitumen and confining stresses. Economic incentives to produce
reserves from the western Canada oil sands have driven geological and
geochemical mapping to assess fluid quality controls and improve our under-
standing of the fundamental principles of the biodegradation of oils. While
much of this activity has been for practical application, researchers have also
had the opportunity to make fundamental advances in our understanding
of subsurface biogeochemical processes and the boundaries of life in Earths
crust. Indeed, the huge size and shallow location of oil sands, coupled with
the many thousands of wells drilled, mean that on a per cell basis, oil sands
represent a most accessible portion of the deep biosphere. Perhaps the most
exciting future for the oil sand resource is on the biological front rather than
as an energy resource.
KEYWORDS : deep biosphere, biodegradation, heavy oil, bitumen
INTRODUCTION
Output from Albertas oil sands bitumen reserves, the
worlds third-largest proven crude oil deposit, is expected
to reach 2.3 million barrels (bbl) per day in 2015, an
increase of 26% over production in 2012, and then rise
to 5.2 million barrels per day by 2030. Hein et al. (2013)
estimate that global bitumen and heavy-oil resources are
around 5.6 trillion barrels, with most of these located in
the Western Hemisphere. Much of the enabling technical
developments have occurred in the largest bitumen and
heavy-oil fields of the Canadian oil sands, the Orinoco
heavy oil belt of Venezuela, the heavy oil on the North
Slope of Alaska, and the heavy-oil fields of California. These
areas have served as proving grounds for the commercial
development of the in situ recovery technologies (mostly
thermal) that will be used to extract most of the remaining
unconventional bitumen and heavy-oil resources.
The American Petroleum Institute gravity (or API gravity)
is the oil densitybased standard by which oil quality
is measured. It is reported in degrees (= [141.5/specific
gravity at 60 F] 131.5). Even with such standards in
place, industry terminology is inconsistent and confusing.
For example, many of the so-called extra heavy oils of
Venezuela would be considered oil sands in Canada or
1 Department of Geoscience
University of Calgary
2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, Alberta T2K 3J8, Canada
E-mail: slarter@ucalgary.ca
2 School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences
Newcastle University
3rd Floor, Devonshire Building, Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 7RU, United Kingdom
E-mail: ian.head@ncl.ac.uk
E LEMENTS , V OL . 10, PP. 277-284
The surface and deep
biospheres meet:
Oil sands reservoir
and boreal forest in
northern Alberta,
Canada
tar sands in the United States.
Heavy oil is defi ned as oil with 10
to 20 API (oil with <10 API is
denser than water) and a viscosity
of more than 100 centipoises (cp;
1 cp = 1 mPa.s). Bitumen is defi ned
as oil having less than 10 API
and a viscosity of more than
10,000 cp at ambient conditions.
The main distinction between the
two is that the high viscosity of
bitumen prevents it from flowing
to a wellbore under in situ reser-
voir conditions, whereas heavy oils
will flow under the same condi-
tions. Heavy oil and bitumen can
be regarded as part of a continuum
of heavily to severely biodegraded
oil and, in oil sands, are found in
unconsolidated sandstone reser-
voirs (Hein et al. 2013).
Bitumen is distributed across Alberta in Lower Cretaceous
sandstones and underlying Devonian carbonate reservoirs
of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (FIG. 1). These
biodegraded oils exhibit wide variations in fluid properties
laterally and vertically, on both local and regional scales,
with API gravities as low as 6 and with dead-oil viscosity
in the range of thousands to tens of millions of centipoises
at reservoir conditions (FIG. 2). Dead oil refers to oil without
its dissolved gas. In the Peace River and Lloydminster areas
of the Albertan oil sands, the high bitumen viscosity means
that primary production is only possible in the few places
where oil viscosities of <35,000 cp are found. These opera-
tions yield low oil recoveries (much less than 15 to 20%).
Thus, much of the oil sand reserves must be extracted using
enhanced oil recovery (e.g. steam-assisted gravity drainage,
SAGD, or via mining operations; Hein et al. 2013).
THE OIL SANDS MACHINE
Large oil sand deposits are found in foreland basins adjacent
to orogenic belts, with source-rock kitchens (where oils
are generated) charging large, shallow, cool reservoirs at
the basin flank, where conditions are suitable for severe
biodegradation of the oils (Creaney et al. 1994; Adams et
al. 2013). The worlds largest oil sand deposit, located in
western Canada, is hosted in Early Cretaceous sandstones
in a basin adjacent to the Canadian Rocky Mountains
(foreland basin) (FIG. 1). Petroleum was derived princi-
pally from marine-shale source rocks, with the petroleum
migrating eastward up to several hundred kilometers to
accumulate and become biodegraded on the northeastern
margin of the basin. The main phase of accumulation was
around 8455 million years ago (Adams et al. 2013; Tozer
et al. 2014). The petroleum accumulated in tide-influenced
277 A UGUS T 2014
 A a
Sediments
b
Water

g
stin
Thru
c
Main reservoir d
Orogenic belt
Foreland basin Regional onlapping onto Extensive severely
Ero seal basement degraded tar sand
ded
sectio
n

t fill
land basemen
Fore
1 km
Basement
50 km

oil
zo n e for Non-degraded oils
ture

rg
as
Ma in deeper reservoirs
B
fo Unit containing source rock 1 Oil migration
ne
zo Unit containing source rock 2 directions
e
ur
at
M

0 15
C Mannville Reservoirs

ca
b as
ha
At
e
harg
Depth (m KB)

Temperature (C)
1000 3
45
t of c
onse

2
er
Riv
e
ac
Pe

1
irs
vo

2000
er

Steriliza!on
s

80
Re
rn
te
es
W

100
Time (Ma)
(A) Foreland basins produce the largest oil sand
FIGURE 1
deposits (after Head et al. 2003). In Canada, the
Lower Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs (McMurray Formation of the
Manneville Group) host the largest resource (Athabasca). It is a
complex sandstone reservoir with vertical (interbedded thin silts
and shales) and lateral barriers (compartment-forming mud plugs)
(Fustic et al. 2013). (B) Variation of oil quality in oil sand and
heavy-oil reservoirs across Alberta. Whole-oil chromatograms are
shown for oils typically found in each region. To the west of the oil
sands, the oils have n-alkanes, while to the east the oils are heavily
biodegraded with no n-alkanes. The API gravity and viscosity
(centipoises, cp) ranges are reported in black and blue texts,
50 0
respectively, and the Peters and Moldowan (PM) biodegradation
level of the oils is reported in red (scale ranges from 0 [no
biodegradation] to 10 [extreme biodegradation]). The inset plot
shows the variation of the API gravity and dead-oil viscosity for the
oils in Lower Cretaceous reservoirs along an eastwest cross-section
(the red line on the figure), through the Athabasca and Peace River
oil sands and beyond into the pasteurized reservoirs to the west of
the oil sands (after Adams et al. 2013). (C) Generalized burial- and
temperature-history curves showing low maximum reservoir
temperatures for Athabasca, intermediate for Peace River, and high
(pasteurized) maxima for reservoirs to the west of Peace River (after
Larter et al. 2006; Adams et al. 2013).

river and estuarine sediments. Oil similarly accumulated bitumens found in karsted Grosmont carbonate reservoirs
in foreland basin settings in the Oficina Formation in underlying the oil sands. Oil sulfur contents range from 1
Venezuela, another major heavy-oil resource. to >10 wt%, with the western Peace River oil sands having
the highest sulfur contents, due to an additional sulfur-
Bitumens are crude oils depleted in saturated hydrocarbons
rich oil charge from Jurassic source rocks. This overall
and enriched in aromatic hydrocarbons (such as alkylnaph-
variability in fluid properties correlates roughly with the
thalenes or alkylphenanthrenes) and non-hydrocarbon
level of oil biodegradation, which broadly increases from
compounds containing sulfur, nitrogen, and oxygen
west to east and from south to north (FIG. 1B). Field observa-
(as well as hydrogen and carbon). Non-hydrocarbon
tions typically record a coincidence of the lowest oil quality
compounds make up around 25 wt% of the western Peace
(highest viscosity and lowest API gravity) and strongest
River oil sands and nearly 60 wt% of parts of the Athabasca
biological and molecular evidence for hydrocarbon biodeg-
oil sands. Canadian bitumen is significantly non-hydro-
radation at or near oilwater transition zones (OWTZs) in
carbon in nature and is commonly denser than water.
the deepest oil-fi lled parts of individual sandstone reser-
Geochemical studies suggest that the bitumen deposits of
voirs, suggesting most petroleum biodegradation occurs
Alberta share common source rocks and similar thermal
near the interface (Bennett et al. 2013) where the biosphere
maturities with the oil sourced predominantly from the
meets the geosphere (FIG. 2).
Mississippian/Devonian Exshaw Formation and with oil
in the western Peace River oil sands sourced from the
Jurassic Gordondale member (Creaney et al. 1994; Adams HEAVY OIL: THE BASE OF THE DEEP
et al. 2013). BIOSPHERE AND MADCOR
Several lines of biogeochemical and microbiological
The primary control on oil composition and viscosity is
evidence suggest that the maximum temperature for biolog-
in-reservoir biodegradation (Larter et al. 2008). Oil API
ical activity in petroleum reservoirs is around 80 oC (Head
gravity in the Alberta Lower Cretaceous reservoirs ranges
et al. 2003; Adams et al. 2013). Connan (1984) suggested
from 38 API (light oil) in the barely biodegraded oil pools
that in-reservoir oil biodegradation ceases at a reservoir
west of the Peace River oil sands to 6 API (bitumen) in
temperature of about 80 oC. However, reservoirs containing
severely biodegraded eastern Athabasca oil sands bitumens,
non-degraded oils are found at low temperatures, and the
and to even lower API values in the most extremely degraded

E LEMENTS 278 A UGUS T 2014

 Resis!vity log Oil Viscosity
Mcp (at 20C) g/g oil
A
A
Lithology
Ohm meters
1.0
Wt % Bitumen g/g oil
0 50 100 0.01 100 0.0 5.0 10.0 0 500 1000 0 100 200
Shale/silts
-2

3 Sands
Oil
8 Leg
Depth (m)

Conglomerate Oil
13
Leg
18

23 OWTZ OWTZ
Sands
28

Water
Shales/silts n-C30 Pr 2-MP 26,27-DMN

4 C16H34 + 64 H2O
Bacteria
Methanogenic Archaea
Oil zone-sandstone Smithella/Syntrophus

B CC
Fermenta!on
B Firmicutes Metabolism

rge r-
1 30% porosity. 85% oil satura!on Thermotogales
Synergistales
ha 2 .y 1 Darcy permeability Flexis!pes
li C g.m 68 H2 + 32 CH3COOH
O -4 k 104 cells/gm
0
~1 degrade> charge
Acetoclas!c
methanogenesis
Methanosaeta
OWC Methanosarcina
32 CH3COOH + 68 H2
charge> degrade
10-4kg.m 2.yr-1
Biodegrade

Syntrophic
68 H2 17 CO2 + 15 CO2 + 32 CH4
acetate oxida!on
Oil Water Transi!on Zone Methanogenic
Smithella/Syntrophus
Sandstone. Firmicutes CO2 reduc!on

64 CO2 + 128 H2 + 68 H2
0-50% water satura!on Methanoculleus
17 CH4 + 34 H2O
Ca 106 cells/gm MADCOR 64 H2O
Methanocorpusculum
Methanogenium
Methanogenic
CO2 reduc!on

49 CH4 + 15 CO2 + 34 H2O 49 CH4 + 15 CO2 + 34 H2O

Processes and bioreactors. (A) Geophysical and
FIGURE 2
geochemical logs through an oil column and oilwater
transition zone (OWTZ) near 600 m depth, in a Canadian oil sand
reservoir, show gradients of hydrocarbon destruction and increasing
oil viscosity with depth (n-C30 = alkane; pr = pristane; 2-MP = 2
methylphenanthrene; 26,27-DMN = dimethylnapthalenes)
(MODIFIED AFTER B ENNETT ET AL. 2013). The OWTZ has lower oil
contents, as indicated by the resistivity log and the bitumen
content log. (B) During the filling of the reservoir with oil over
geological timescales, oil charge and biodegradation rates had
similar magnitudes and the oilwater contact (OWC) could have
migrated back and forth competitively until the reservoirs filled,
with gas leaking through the shale caprock above the sandstone
reservoir. The multimeter-thick OWTZ contains the main biological
resource of the reservoir; the OWTZ is the site of the MADCOR
process (methanogenic alkane degradation dominated by CO2
reduction), in which H2O and hydrocarbons react to make CH4
and CO2, reducing the bitumen content in the process. (C) Major
processes involved in MADCOR. Points where H2 is a key interme-
diate are highlighted in red. In oil reservoirs, methane production
from acetate (acetoclastic methanogenesis) is subordinate and most
methane is generated via (syntrophic) acetate oxidation coupled to
methanogenic CO2 reduction. M ODIFIED AFTER JONES ET AL. (2008)

explanation for their occurrence invokes the paleopasteur- petroleum reservoir microbial cultures under both sulfate-
ization hypothesis (Wilhelms et al. 2001). According to reducing and methanogenic conditions (Gieg et al. 2010).
this hypothesis, the upper thermal limit for hydrocarbon- Observations from laboratory and field studies suggest
degrading microbial life in petroleum reservoirs is typically that hydrocarbon-fermenting bacteriawhich provide
around 8090 o C. Once a reservoir has been heated to methanogens with H 2, CO2, and acetateare more heat
temperatures in this range, it is typically not recolonized by sensitive than the methanogens themselves (pasteuriza-
hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms, even if the reser- tion at 95 oC for 2 hours stops methanogenesis associated
voir is subsequently uplifted to shallower depths where in with oil degradation, but does not kill all methanogens).
situ temperatures are below 80 oC. Subsequently a relation- There are also a few reports of subsurface hyperthermo-
ship between the extent of biodegradation, maximum philes isolated at temperatures above 90 oC (Grassia et al.
reservoir burial depth, and maximum burial temperature 1996). Methanogenesis and sulfate reduction have been
was observed in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin measured only at 70 83 o C in waters produced from
(Adams et al. 2006). Reservoirs containing light oils west Californian petroleum reservoirs, which can be as hot as
of the Peace River oil sands experienced pasteurization 120 o C (Orphan et al. 2003). The base of the heavy-oil
above 80 oC during deeper burial. The western boundary zone appears to correspond to the base of the hydrocarbon-
of the oil sands in the Lower Cretaceous reservoirs is the degrading biosphere in Earths crust!
boundary of the petroleum-degrading deep biosphere in
Where do the organisms responsible for oil biodegradation
Alberta (FIG. 1B, C).
in petroleum reservoirs come from? To the west of the Peace
Why does life in oil fields cease at temperatures lower River oil sands, reservoirs have remained pasteurized for
than the 121 oC observed for organisms in high-tempera- over 50 million years, and we know of no good examples
ture hydrothermal systems? Thermophilic, hydrocarbon- of reinoculation of pasteurized heavy-oil fields. Work from
degrading microorganisms are rare. One moderately McIntoshs group (e.g. Schlegel et al. 2011) demonstrated
thermophilic, alkane-degrading, sulfate-reducing bacte- that organic-rich shales, and some coals located in interior
rium, with optimum activity at 60 oC, has been isolated United States basins, locally matured to temperatures well
(Rueter et al. 1994). Only recently has hydrocarbon degra- over 100 oC, became methanogenic after uplift, cooling,
dation at relatively high temperatures been reported from and exposure, and underwent microbial reintroduction

E LEMENTS 279 A UGUS T 2014

with groundwater flow. For the most part, in the oil sands
as in other oil reservoirs, the petroleum deep biosphere
is most likely derived from the near-surface biosphere
through subsidence: the organisms present at depth are
descendants of those living in the sediments when they
were deposited.
While much progress has been made, there are still
confl icting observations about microbial processing of
heavy oils. Recent work suggests that while the bulk
processes forming the oil sands must have been anaerobic,
aerobic-organism genomic signatures (e.g. Pseudomonas
species) have been identified in oil sands petroleum
columns (An et al. 2013). Our group recently suggested that
these organisms might actually be capable of functioning
anaerobically, and anaerobic activity by Pseudomonas
spp. has been reported by Budwill (pers. comm. 2011)
in anaerobic, methanogenic, coal-biodegradation micro-
cosms. Certainly, the abundant associated methane, low
levels of CO2, and heavy carbon isotope signatures of the
CO2 observed in heavy-oil and oil sand reservoirs (Jones
et al. 2008) are consistent with anaerobic, and specifi -
cally methanogenic, processes driving overall oil degra-
dation in these systems. However, it is likely that there are
processes of which we have little appreciation at present.
For example, at the end of the last glacial period during
melting of the thick ice sheet that covered the oil sands
(Grasby and Chen 2005), shallow oil sand reservoirs could
have been flooded with surface waters and thus potentially
infected with new organisms.
The extent of petroleum degradation in reservoirs over
geological timescales is controlled by the reservoir tempera-
ture, the chemical compounds being degraded, recharge
and mixing of fresher oils with degraded oils, and the
relationships between bioreactor elements (oil and water
volumes; oilwater contact area) (Larter et al. 2006).
Reservoir-water salinity appears to act as a second-order
control on the process, and variations in these factors
across oil fields control the lateral and vertical oil compo-
sition and viscosity gradients observed (Larter et al. 2006,
2008). Biodegradation fluxes for fresh petroleum in clastic
oil reservoirs, assessed using advection/diffusion models
and geochemical gradients (Larter et al. 2003), are in the
range of 10 4 kg petroleum m2 OWC y1 (OWC = oilwater and cell abundance in the deep biosphere, within or outside
contact). The biodegradation flux increases with decreasing
reservoir temperature, from a flux of zero near 80 oC to
a maximum flux at the OWC of much less than 10 3 kg
petroleum m2 OWC y1 at temperatures less than 40 oC.
The biodegradation flux subsequently drops to much lower
levels at very low reservoir temperatures and with severely
degraded oils, such as seen in oil sands today where reser-
voir temperatures can be as low as 10 oC (Adams et al. 2013).
Quantification of bacteria in the OWTZ of an oil sand
reservoir, using polymerase chain reaction approaches,
suggests that about 105 to 106 cells per gram of sediment are
present, with approximately 103 to 10 4 cells/g outside the
transition zone (Bennett et al. 2013). This is in agreement
with the notion that microbial activity and abundance in
the deep subsurface is elevated at geochemical interfaces.
Bacterial abundances in the OWTZ are consistent with the
trend of decreasing bacterial abundance with depth that
has emerged from extensive analysis of microbial cells in
deep subsurface sediments (Parkes et al. 1994). Thus, oil
reservoirs are nothing special in the context of the deep
biosphere except for the much greater access provided by
the oil industry! The Canadian oil sands biosphere likely
contains well in excess of 1023 bacterial cells (FIG. 3).
E LEMENTS 280
Variation in biodegradation levels in heavy-oil columns
is ubiquitous, reflecting biodegradation processes at the
oil column base and mass transport processes within the
oil column itself (Larter et al. 2003). Modeling suggests
that where continuous chemical gradients in oil columns
are seen, biodegradation must have been occurring near
continuously, for many millions of years. It is estimated
that ~35 million years of biodegradation, close to the time
span of main oil charge, reservoir burial and subsequent
reservoir uplift (ca 8550 Ma), resulted in biodegradation
of ~3050% of the oil mass to produce the current oil sand
bitumen and large volumes of gas, up to 7 times the reser-
voir volume of methane and CO2 (Adams et al. 2013). The
absence of significant gas caps today is indicative of major
gas leakage from the deposit during this time. Without this
leakage, the gas would have displaced much of the oil from
the reservoir. Much of this methane and CO2 would have
been released during the Laramide uplift and may have
made a small contribution to the warming seen at the
PaleoceneEocene Thermal Maximum (Adams et al. 2013).
In light-oil reservoirs, a consortium of syntrophic bacteria
(one species lives off the products of another species) adding
functional groups to hydrocarbons and oxidizing acetate
to H2 and CO2 are linked with methanogenic archaea that
use hydrogen to reduce CO2 to CH4. MADCOR (methano-
genic alkane degradation dominated by CO2 reduction) is
the likely process by which alkane-rich crude oil is turned
into methane, CO2 , and residual heavy oil or bitumen
(Jones et al. 2008). While the number of methanogenic,
crude oildegrading microbial communities that have been
characterized remains small, it is clear that a number of
different organisms may have a role in converting crude
oil components to methanogenic substrates.
It is intriguing that the bacterial abundance in the most
biologically active part of oil sand reservoirs is compa-
rable with that seen elsewhere in the deep biosphere. This
suggests that the supply of electron donors (organic matter)
is not limiting in petroleum biodegradation processes
(Head et al. 2003). It remains unclear whether nutrient
limitations, microbial inhibition by petroleum compo-
nents, water availability, or other factors control net rates
of biodegradation in reservoirs. Similar levels of activity
oil fields, suggest that that there is a large-scale, common
control on biological activity in the deep subsurface. The
observation that oil charge rates (known to be largely
driven by source-rock heating rates) and oil biodegrada-
tion rates are similar in heavy oil fields (Larter et al. 2003)
may suggest a causal linkage related to common physics
of mass and energy transport in the subsurface (or it may
be purely coincidental).
H2 is a key intermediate in heavy-oil and bitumen forma-
tion (FIG. 2 C). In oil reservoirs, acetoclastic (acetate-split-
ting) methanogenesis (anaerobic archaea converting acetic
acid to CH4) seems subordinate, and most methanogenesis
(>80%) results from the reduction of CO2 with hydrogen,
with both H2 from water and hydrocarbons being liber-
ated during the degradation process. Dolfi ng et al. (2008)
demonstrated that a low P H2 (<4 Pa) is required for thermo-
dynamic feasibility of the methane-producing MADCOR
process, and this is achieved naturally in oil fields by
methanogens using H 2 for CO2 reduction. Although it is
theoretically feasible to recover H 2 from biodegrading oil
fields, the low concentrations would render this difficult
as a viable low-carbon, large-scale energy-recovery process.
A UGUS T 2014
ENERGY RECOVERY
Biodegradation reduces oil hydrocarbon concentration and
increases oil molecular weight, resulting in large increases
in oil viscosity. Light oils may have viscosities of around
a centipoise or less (water viscosity at 20 o C), whereas
bitumen may have viscosities from tens of thousands (cold
maple syrup) to tens of millions (cold peanut butter) of
centipoises at reservoir conditions. Thus severely biode-
graded oil (bitumen) will not flow under native reservoir
conditions. Two sets of processes to liberate heavy oils from
sandstone reservoirs have been invented. The fi rst set of
processes is a variant of the Clark process (Clark 1931),
which takes mined oil sand ore and processes it with
alkaline warm water to separate an oil phase from the
sand; the oil is then concentrated, upgraded, and refi ned.
The second set of processes, used for oil sand reservoirs
deeper than ~200 m, involves steam injection into the
reservoir itself. The most common process used today for
in situ recovery of bitumen is called steam-assisted gravity
drainage (SAGD; Butler 1997); it uses injected steam, gener-
ated in natural gasfi red boilers, to heat oil in situ to lower
its viscosity. Heating the oil to temperatures above 200 oC
reduces its viscosity to around 10 cp, enabling production.
Given that these deeper reservoirs make up 97% of the total
oil sand resource, thermal recovery processes will dominate
future production from oil sands.
Current in situ oil sand development focuses on SAGD
technology and, to a lesser degree, cyclic-steam stimula-
tion (CSS) for deep deposits. Both are clever technologies
involving steam injection and oil and condensed-water
recovery from horizontal wells that are several hundred
meters long (FIG. 3; Butler 1997). Other emerging technolo-
gies include in situ combustion, in which air or oxygen is
injected and oil is ignited to produce in situ heat and steam.
The addition of solvents such as butane to injected steam,
the electrical heating of reservoirs, and passive heating-
assisted recovery methods (Hein et al. 2013) are also used
but are currently minor players.
SAGD (FIG. 3) is the primary in situ process and uses two
horizontal wells. The top well constantly injects steam, at
near reservoir pressure, into a depletion chamber that forms
in the oil sands reservoir. The steam releases its latent heat
through condensation at the edge of the chamber, heating
the surrounding oil sand and causing the viscosity of the
heated oil to decrease. Under the action of gravity, the
heated oil drains through the reservoir down the edges of
the steam chamber to the production well at the base of
the chamber (Butler 1997). The key controls on the produc-
tivity, efficiency, and emissions of the SAGD process are
reviewed by Gates and Larter (2014), who discuss fluid-
property variations and intrareservoir shales as the major
obstacles to efficient oil production.
The recovery, extraction, and processing of bitumen is
an energy-intensive process, using mostly natural gas
and electricity. It also results in significant greenhouse
gas emissions (Bergerson and Keith 2010). Open-pit
mining projects typically have lower energy use, lower
CO2 emissions, and better resource-extraction efficien-
cies (i.e. less energy and resources required per barrel of
bitumen produced) than in situ projects. In situ projects,
however, have lower water use and a smaller direct land-use
footprint, though if habitat fragmentation is counted, their
life cycle land-use impacts may be greater. Looking only at
extraction emissions, oil sand emissions are up to 5 times
higher than those of conventional oil. If, however, one
looks at the full well-to-wheel emissions, across the range of
emissions from oil sands and conventional crudes, then oil
sand projects are about 1020% higher than conventional
oil projects (Bergerson and Keith 2010).
THE AGE OF BIOLOGY AND ALTERNATIVE
FUTURES FOR UNCONVENTIONAL
RESOURCES
The discovery of MADCOR raises many possibilities for
reduced emission processes as methane is produced from
biodegraded hydrocarbons, utilizing water as a coreactant,

From SAGD to beyond Syntrophic Bacteria

Resource
Fossil fuel (100 Bbbl+)
FIGURE 3 The present and
some futures: The

SAGD Biological resource >1023 cells

Largely uncharacterized
block diagram (modified after
Hein et al. 2013) shows typical,
optimal conditions for steam-
assisted gravity drainage
(SAGD) in situ schemes used in
the Athabasca oil sand area.
Resource Op!ons Most of the bitumen produc-
tion is from the McMurray
Today Formation. The horizontal
injector and producer wells
Oil commonly have 5 m of vertical
Microbial conversion to methane separation and extend for 600
to 800 m from the toe to the
Knowledge of the deep biosphere heel in the reservoir. The
producer well is commonly
placed 25 m above basal
water zones in the reservoir
Futurescape: and typically has more than
Discovering new subsurface bacteria, archaea, viruses, and their genomes 100 to 500 m of overburden.
Discovering novel biosynthesis routes and biotransforma!ons While the recoverable oil
resource is large, the biological
Development of subsurface/surface applica!ons of in situ microbial and viral genes to prac!cal ends
resource is immense, yet
Developing in situ processes for recovering feedstock chemicals (e.g. alcohols, acids, biopolymers) largely uncharacterized. Thus,
Developing biosensors using low-energy, high-anity enzymes of deep biosphere microbes in addition to being an energy
Developing deep biosphere microbial or viral gene pools as sources of an!bio!cs or other products resource, these formations are
Developing routes to novel specialty chemicals based on deep biosphere microorganisms a major portal to the
Developing approaches to clean up contaminated areas inspired by deep biosphere organisms unexplored microbial world
of oil reservoirs and may be
Developing novel approaches for controlling bio-influenced corrosion problems in industrial processes valuable as a source of knowl-
edge and novel genes!

E LEMENTS 281 A UGUS T 2014

with H2 being the principal intermediate (Jones et al. 2008).
This raises the prospect of a truly green energy-recovery
process if hydrogen production could be dramatically
accelerated by engineering in a reservoir and if H 2 could
be recovered in situ. Unfortunately, the thermodynamic
window in which H 2 is generated limits its production to
conditions of low P H2 (Dolfi ng et al. 2008). This requires
dynamically managed recovery systems for H 2 produc-
tion that will be technically challenging. Accelerated
methane production through nutrient addition to heavy
oil fields is feasible today, but with low natural gas prices
in North America, there is currently little economic incen-
tive for such schemes. However, increased oil production
together with gas is being considered as a biologically
assisted engineering recovery process, following on from
conventional primary and secondary oil recovery. An
alternative to terminal methane production could be the
use of methanotrophs (methane-consuming organisms)
to convert any produced methane in situ or ex situ to
higher-molecular-weight hydrocarbons, other species, or
methanol. Biological approaches that use methanotrophs
to produce long-chain hydrocarbons have been identified
as a priority by the United States government (Chu and
Majumbdar 2012). Although using methanogenic and
methanotrophic methods to convert heavy oil to methane
to heavier hydrocarbons or other fuels is possible, it seems
to be a technological stretch at this time and would not
please William of Occam!
The most interesting future for oil sands may lie outside the
energy sector, and that, in the end, will be largely driven
by politics and economic interests. The lack of technologies
beyond SAGD capable of recovering energy from the vast
chemical reductive potential of oil sands, without emissions
of large amounts of CO2, reflects the low level of invest-
ment in energy-related R&D over the past decades and is
a global societal/business failure rather than a technical
one. Today, United States (and Canadian) consumers spend
more on potato chips than their governments devote to
energy R&D (US NAS 2010). Low spending and lack of basic
research have resulted in few breakthrough technologies for
the market to optimize in the fossil fuel area. Marchetti a repository of biological novelty (FIG. 3). Mapping the
(1977) showed that the time for market-share replacement
of one energy source by another (e.g. replacement of wood
by coal then by oil) is long, with 1% to 10% market-share
replacement taking ~40 years and with 2% to 50% taking
a century. Driven solely by current market economic
models with their legacy investment effects, few radically
different developments in fossil energy seem possible in
the timetable to 2050, by which time drastic emissions
reductions will necessarily already have been implemented.
Are alternate futures possible? The bitumen represents a
vast chemical resource which could drive various chemical
or electrochemical processes in situ or ex situ that might
be used for low-emission energy recovery. Bitumen could
also be a source of hydrogen or electrons via biofuel cells
or other systems, and its extraction could encompass a
range of in situ microbial processes having biotechno-
logical applications (FIG. 3). The resource is of intriguing
scale and complexity, but such radical futures would also
need new business models. To date, the energy sector has
been reluctant to experiment with very different energy-
recovery processes involving fossil fuel resources, and
current, market-driven technology-replacement cycles are
too slow to significantly impact emissions reductions by
mid-century. A market-driven model of technology devel-
opment has not been the only model tried through history,
and, as with much large-scale infrastructure, the develop-
ment of SAGD itself was driven by government investments
(Alberta Oil Sands Technology and Research Authority).
E LEMENTS 282
What may be required is a focused investment and R&D
program equivalent to the United States Manhattan
Project during the 1940s. That project established an inter-
national, focused synergy of government, industry, and
universities to develop weapons (Kelly 2009). Its postwar,
nonmilitary legacy included the U.S. National Laboratories,
nuclear power, radioactive isotopes, modern technological
industry, and industrial R&D, and also set the pattern for
Big Collaborative Science (e.g. the Large Hadron Collider,
the Square Kilometer Array, and the Human Genome
Project). The Manhattan Project demonstrated that it is
possible to transform technology and have it deployed at
scale within a decade. Surprisingly, the Manhattan Project
was cheap, with a cost of US$22 billion (equivalent cost
in 2008 dollars) over 5 years and a peak spending of less
than 0.5% of the United States GDP (Stine 2009), though
the environmental legacy and cost is large and complex.
In contrast, hundreds of billions of dollars are planned to
be invested in oil sands developments in the next 25 years,
with over $20 billion (1.3% of Canadian GDP) invested
in oil sands development in 2008 alone (Alberta Energy
2014), but with only a tiny fraction of that dedicated
to R&D. A coordinated governmentindustryacademia
megaprogram focused on a rapid transition away from
traditional fossil fuel use could be most cost effective and
would likely cost much less than 2% of GDP (equivalent
to the annual retail spending on Christmas in Canada). It
could transition technology and economies towards zero
emissions, while transforming incumbent industry which,
from historical precedent, may otherwise resist changea
techno-economic fi nesse! The oil sands may be the place
to start such a transformative program!
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The oil sands and heavy-oil belts of the world represent the
most viable access point to the deep biosphere, which from
a cell-balance perspective is the largest biome on the planet
(Kallmeyer et al. 2012). Although these belts may not be
biodiversity hotspots like the Amazon, they do represent
a huge, largely untapped (micro)biological resource and
distribution of bacteria, archaea, and viruses in subsurface
reservoirs and assessing gene complements and biotech
applications are necessary activities. To survive petroleum
reservoirs, microorganisms must generally survive high
pressures bathed in a complex mix of organic solvents and
potentially toxic chemicals, and depending on the partic-
ular formation, high temperatures and/or salinity. The
organisms present may, therefore, have evolved survival
and lifestyle strategies that may prove beneficial for a
variety of applications (pollutant degradation, producing
industrial chemicals, etc.) and for biosensor develop-
ment with possible nano/bioengineering applications.
It is still unclear whether bioactive species with medical
applications from deep-biosphere bacterial or viral gene
pools are possible (FIG. 3), but our needs for novel antibi-
otics have never been greater. Given the great biological
novelty and potential for technological, environmental,
and economic advances, the oil sands metagenome may
be a more valuable and less contentious resource than the
heavy oil and bitumen!
Oil sands represent an end-member of a global resource
consisting of oil reservoirs containing trillions of barrels
of viscous, heavily biodegraded oil which are increasingly
being produced as energy needs grow worldwide. While
An expanded, unedited version covering oil sands
emissions and alternative futures in more detail is
available online at www.ucalgary.ca/prg/publications.
A UGUS T 2014
emissions related to oil sands use are higher than those of ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
conventional crude oil use, the overall end-use differences
We acknowledge the contributions made by the very many
are small. Most future oil production from this resource
scientists, engineers, and technicians, both academic and
will use energy-inefficient steam-based recovery processes,
industrial, referenced here, who worked in our research
but there are many exciting possibilities for using biological
groups on petroleum biodegradation during the last 15
processes for much cleaner energy recovery within and
years, in both Newcastle and Calgary. We also acknowl-
crucially beyond the oil sands. Current politics and market
edge material contributions from Canada Research Chairs,
economics mean that it is unlikely new recovery technolo-
Bacchus Consortium, Genome Canada, Genome Alberta,
gies will develop quickly, and the most exciting future
Carbon Management Canada, NSERC (National Science
for the oil sands may be one in which the resource is a
and Engineering Research Council, Canada), the NERC
biological one rather than an energy source.
(Natural Environment Research Council, UK), and PRG
(Petroleum Reservoir Group). We acknowledge material
previously published by AAPG, Nature Publishing Group,
and Elsevier.

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