The concept of “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” shows us the difficulty of attempting to replace an existing method with a new, a different, or an improved method. The auto-reason always is “an unproven method”. But what if the proven method was proven to be irreversibly destructive: physically, environmentally, thermodynamically and economically.

Hundreds of studies and actual operations have shown that this is the case with steam injection especially in shallow viscous oil-bearing formation ranging from significant formation and wellbore damage with subsequent impairment of oil production to an uncontrollable “blowout” of the formation. Along comes immense emission of greenhouse gases.

Each arrangement of steam into a given formation (spot or effect); whether in a single (injection/production) well, or in a standalone injection well and a standalone production well; means steam distillation in a single effect. In this single effect; steam distillation whether to distill a saline stream or to thin viscous oil; the performance ratio or the gain output ratio is the defining point in terms of energy consumption, which cannot be greater than 1. The all important of this specific defining point of a single distillation effect may be not cumulatively realized in a steam project in its entirety to extract viscous oil from multiple wells in a confined space. Yet, the all not inclusive of this specific design point are at least the costs of treating feed water for different types of boilers, pumping power for transferring fluids to (e.g., steam) and from (e.g., wet oil) oil wells, separating the extracted wet oil into produced water and oil in an elaborate wet oil gathering center, and the disposal or reuse of produced water.

Oil has the strong instinct neither to mix with water nor even the will to follow the oil in front of it. Our innovation is based on creating a generic “oil duffer” to literally herd viscous oil without destructing and/or blowing out the formation, without emitting immense air pollutants, and without wasting extreme expenditures.