I have taken the following information concerning the down hole type pumps that Connacher is testing at the Great Divide project from the December 2007 issue of Oilsands Review article on Connachers website, written by Andrea W. Lorenz entitled "Producer OF The Year" in which both Connacher's Dick Gusella and Encana's Joe Brannen received the award. The following appears on page 28:

Evolving SAGD Technology

"Although companies have been trying the techniques of SAGD since the 1970's real breakthroughs have only been achieved in the last five years. For Chinna [Harbir Chinna, Encanna's vice president of upstream operations] the most significant recent technological inprovement has been the introduction of electric submersible pumps.

"Before we used to use gas. We didn't have enough pressure downhole."

According to Schlumberger's oilfield glossary, an ESP is a downhole pump especially designed "with vane and fin configurations" that alleviate frictional losses due to bitumen or heavy oil's high viscosity.

For Encanna, ESPs provide a key benefit: they help lower it's SOR. As Chinna says, "our goal in all of these [innovations] is to reduce our steam-to-oil-ratio because that has the biggest impact on capital costs and on our operating costs."

The pumps design allows Encana to turn our wells on and off, and we can operate at lower pressure, which is better for lowering our steam-to-oil ratio," Chinna explains.

The company now claims an SOR of 2.5 barrels of steam to one barrel of oil, a ratio it has maintained since before 2003. Today, 72 ESP's are at work at Foster Creek.

Brannen and Chinna are intent on pushing the SOR to 1.4 -a rate they believe they can achieve with their newest technological innovation: "solvent-assisted process" or SAP. The process which involves using butane as a solvent, is close to commercialization, Chinna says.

"By next year we will be shutting off a lot of steam in our wells. We'll recover a lot of our oil - the last 20 to 25 percent -without injecting any steam. That will drop our steam[to] oil ratio to 2:0. With SAP, we expect to get around 1:4."

Operating costs at Encana's oilsand operations range between $12 and $14 per barrel depending on the cost of natural gas. Currently it take 1000 cubic feet of gas to produce a barrel of oil.

"Over the next seven years our target is 0.6 [thousand cubic feet] per barrel," says Chinna, adding "the status quo is unaccepatable for us."

Let the debate begin - Scott