Abstract: An integrated thermal recovery process using a solvent of a pentane or hexane or both as an additive to, or sole component of, a gravity-dominated process for recovering bitumen or heavy oil from a reservoir. A pentane-hexane specific solvent fraction is extracted at surface from a diluent stream. That pentane-hexane solvent fraction is then injected into the reservoir as part of a gravity-dominated recovery process within the reservoir, and when that solvent fraction is subsequently produced as part of the oil or bitumen blend, it is allowed to remain within the blend to enhance the subsequent blend treating and transportation steps. Meanwhile, the remainder of the diluent from which the solvent stream had been extracted is utilized at surface as a blending stream to serve as an aid in treating of produced fluids and also to serve as a means of rendering the bitumen or heavy oil stream pipelineable.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes a single well predominantly gravity-dominated recovery process for producing viscous hydrocarbons from a subterranean oil sands formation. The process operates a single vertical or inclined well within a formation, the wellbore having an injection means and a production means, the injection means being positioned in the wellbore closer to the surface than the production means. The process provides an area of high mobility adjacent the production means. A mobilizing fluid is injected through the injection means into the formation to mobilize the viscous hydrocarbons in the formation while substantially concurrently producing hydrocarbons through the production means. The gravity dominated process may be SAGD and the present process may be a single vertical or inclined well SAGD process.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes a single well predominantly gravity-dominated recovery process for producing viscous hydrocarbons from a subterranean oil sands formation. The process operates a single vertical or inclined well within a formation, the wellbore having an injection means and a production means, the injection means being positioned in the wellbore closer to the surface than the production means. The process provides an area of high mobility adjacent the production means. A mobilizing fluid is injected through the injection means into the formation to mobilize the viscous hydrocarbons in the formation while substantially concurrently producing hydrocarbons through the production means. The gravity dominated process may be SAGD and the present process may be a single vertical or inclined well SAGD process.

Abstract: Solvent may be injected into a hydrocarbon reservoir at an increasingly elevated vertical level to allow vapor of the solvent to contact and mobilize viscous hydrocarbons in the reservoir, for producing mobilized hydrocarbons. Solvent may be injected into a mobile zone below a viscous hydrocarbon zone, to allow solvent vapor to ascend to mobilize viscous hydrocarbons in the viscous hydrocarbon zone. A vertical or slanted injection well may be used to inject the solvent into the reservoir, and a production well spaced horizontally apart from the injection well may be used to produce fluids from the reservoir. A bottom-up solvent-aided process may comprise injecting water and liquid solvent into the mobile zone, and then injecting heated water and solvent into the mobile zone.

Abstract: Methods are provided for increasing overall fluid mobility in a near-wellbore region in an oil sands reservoir, for example in a reservoir having an inter-well region between a first well and a second well of a well pair in which at least a portion of the near-wellbore region is within the inter-well region. The methods may involve inoculating the near-wellbore region with a microorganism, wherein the near-wellbore region comprises a hydrocarbon phase and an aqueous phase, the viscosity of the hydrocarbon phase being greater than the viscosity of the aqueous phase. Conditions may be maintained in the near-wellbore region so that the microorganism metabolizes at least a portion of the hydrocarbon phase so that saturation of the near-wellbore region by the hydrocarbon phase decreases and saturation of the near-wellbore region by the aqueous phase increases.

Abstract: A wellbore assembly comprises a tubular member adapted to be connected to other tubular members, the tubular member having a side wall defining a hollow interior and an array of openings therethrough to permit material into the interior. A screening element extends about the tubular member over the array of openings to control the material that reaches the array of openings. A stress relieving arrangement associated with the screening element permits relative movement between the screening element and the tubular member to absorb stress build-up within the screening element whether due to mechanical or temperature induced forces that would tend to distortion the screening elements. In a preferred arrangement, the wellbore assembly serves to maintain solids control in production wells while accommodating stresses and strains that occur within the tubular members in those wells.

Abstract: A process of increasing recovery rate of hydrocarbon from a reservoir of bituminous sands is disclosed. The process comprises softening bitumen in a region in the reservoir to generate a fluid comprising a hydrocarbon, to allow the fluid to drain by gravity from the region into a production well below the region for recovery of the hydrocarbon; and providing vapour of a compound to the region, and allowing the compound to disperse and condense in the region. The compound is represented by wherein (i) m is 1, and A is —NH2 or —N(H)CH2CH2OH; or (ii) m is 1 or greater than 1, and A is —OR1, R1 being an alkyl group. A mixture comprising steam and vapour of the compound for injection into the reservoir and a system for recovery of hydrocarbon from the reservoir are also disclosed.

Abstract: An integrated thermal recovery process using a solvent of a pentane or hexane or both as an additive to, or sole component of, a gravity-dominated process for recovering bitumen or heavy oil from a reservoir. A pentane-hexane specific solvent fraction is extracted at surface from a diluent stream. That pentane-hexane solvent fraction is then injected into the reservoir as part of a gravity-dominated recovery process within the reservoir, and when that solvent fraction is subsequently produced as part of the oil or bitumen blend, it is allowed to remain within the blend to enhance the subsequent blend treating and transportation steps. Meanwhile, the remainder of the diluent from which the solvent stream had been extracted is utilized at surface as a blending stream to serve as an aid in treating of produced fluids and also to serve as a means of rendering the bitumen or heavy oil stream pipelineable.

Abstract: A slotted liner having straight-cut liner slots with a wall roughness which does not exceed 1 ?m. A slot cutting method to produce smooth slots using a specified blade configuration, rotational speed, and feed rate.

Abstract: A method is provided whereby a placement-based cost function is utilized to minimize leakage and dynamic power that is consumed by clock networks implemented within integrated circuits (ICs) such as field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). An initial placement of clock signal loads is analyzed to determine whether an alternative placement of clock signal loads results in the reduction of the usage of vertical clock spines, or equivalently, the optimization of the cost function. Several desirable characteristics are obtained through strategic clock signal load placement within the FPGA in accordance with the cost function. First, the number of clock regions spanned by a particular clock signal is minimized. Second, interconnect capacitance within the clock region is also minimized. By minimizing the total capacitance of a particular clock network implemented within a clock region, the leakage and dynamic power consumed by the clock network within the clock region is also minimized.

Abstract: Dynamic power savings and efficient use of resources are achieved in a programmable logic device (PLD) such as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or complex programmable logic device (CPLD) by receiving a design netlist specifying a circuit including clock signals, clock buffers, clock enable signals and synchronous elements, examining the design netlist to identify synchronous elements coupled to common clock and clock enable signals, cutting the clock signals to the synchronous elements to form a modified design netlist, inserting gated clock buffers into the modified netlist to output gated clock signals to the synchronous elements, responsive to the clock enable signals, and performing placement and routing on the modified netlist. A system for performing the method on an EDA tool is provided. The methods may be provided as executable instructions stored on a computer readable medium which cause a programmable processor to perform the methods.

Abstract: A method of initiating or accelerating the establishment of fluid communication between horizontal wells located in a formation of very limited fluid mobility, such as an oil sand at original temperature or an infill well completed in an immobile hydrocarbon region located between surrounding well patterns in which a gravity-dominated recovery process is or has been operated.

Abstract: A method of reducing power of a circuit is described. The method includes determining at least one unused selection input associated with stages of a multiplexer tree; pulling the at least one unused selection input to a constant value; and assigning predetermined values to unused data inputs of the multiplexer tree associated with the at least one unused selection input.

Abstract: Various approaches for generating an implementation of an electronic circuit design are disclosed. In one approach, one or more configuration bits that have don't care conditions are identified for a LUT block of a design. A dynamic power state for a subset of a first level of logic devices in the LUT block is determined as a function of each identified configuration bit that has a don't care condition. A dynamic power state for a subset of a second level of logic devices is determined as a function of the determined power state for the first level of logic devices. A respective value for each identified configuration bit of the LUT is selected in response to the determined dynamic power states. The respective value is placed into the design for each identified configuration bit.