Canadian REITS, Trusts & Dividend Stocks Message Board

7/27/2003 4:06:20 PM

From: Gulo

The natural gas is not needed to push the bitumen into wells. It is needed to prevent heating steam from escaping the bitumen formation.

In SAGD, steam is injected into the bitumen reservoir below a bitumen collection pipe. The steam melts the bitumen, allowing the mixture of steam and bitumen to be pumped out. If the bitumen reservoir is capped with natural gas, and the gas is removed, the steam will move into the gas reservoir instead of heating the bitumen.

The reason natural gas is being shut in is to protect the current and proposed SAGD developments.
-g