Abstract

This presentation shows that DME is evaluated as a promising solvent for heavy oil and bitumen recovery; A novel workflow is developed to predict the phase behavior between DME and water; DME injection can accelerate bitumen production compared with butane injection because solubility of DME in water improves mass transfer; A lower energy-oil ratio and less heat loss in the warm DME injection process indicate another great advantage of DME; Through proper solvent recovery strategies, more DME can be recovered; Economic analysis will be performed to evaluate the whole process, including bitumen production and solvent recovery.