Bitumen is very viscous – it doesn’t flow like conventional crude oil — and therefore requires special extraction to bring it to a state where it is fluid enough to be moved. Bitumen is refined into gasoline and other hydrocarbon products, just like other oil resources. 

All of ConocoPhillips Canada’s reserves average depths of 1,300 feet below the surface. In-situ recovery techniques, such as steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD), have to be used to extract these deep deposits of bitumen without removing the soil and materials above it.

SAGD involves injecting high-temperature steam underground through a horizontal well to melt the bitumen. The bitumen then flows to a second horizontal well beneath the initial well where it is pumped to the surface for processing. These pairs of horizontal wells are drilled from a central well pad in order to minimize land disturbance. Steam injection and oil production happen continuously and simultaneously. The resulting mixture of bitumen and water (which is condensed from the steam) is then piped from the producing well to a nearby processing facility, where the bitumen is separated from the water. The produced water is treated and then recycled to generate new steam, which travels through above-ground pipelines back to the wells for injection. The bitumen is mixed with a diluent (usually natural gas condensate) to create a blend that can be transported to refineries.