- Profero Energy is a Calgary-based technology company focused on recovering stranded heavy oil by microbially converting it to natural gas. Profero’s proprietary technology has the potential to significantly increase the recovery of heavy oil from reservoirs already exploited by conventional recovery methods.
The world oil inventory is dominated by oils with low recovery factors, i.e., heavy and super heavy oils and bitumens and by residual oils in watered out oil fields. Water flood technologies for conventional recovery are fairly mature yet leave most oil (65% or more) in the reservoir. Average recovery of heavy oils worldwide is even lower (17%) than conventional oil recovery. Recovery technologies for the volumetrically dominant non-conventional heavy oils and bitumens are largely based around thermal or solvent based technologies that have high capital and production costs combined with lower market price than conventional resources. These technologies are costly, both environmentally, in terms of carbon dioxide emissions associated with recovery and upgrading, or economically in terms of steam, solvent or upgrading costs. In contrast, the recent discovery of anaerobic biological cracking of liquid petroleum hydrocarbons to methane (methanogenesis) occurs through natural biological action at temperatures as low as 10°C, albeit at slow rates. The discovery and deep understanding of this process by Profero scientists has enabled Profero to demonstrate that the natural methanogenic biodegradation of hydrocarbons can be dramatically accelerated. This process, termed Low Emission Microbial Upgrading and Recovery has the potential to recover of an additional 23% of from existing heavy oil assets.