Shell Oil Comapny

Marian Marino

Augustinus Wilhelmus Maria Roes

Gary Lee Beer

Robert Charles Ryan

John Michael Karanikas

Richard Pollard

Etuan Zhang

Namit Jaiswal

Robert Irving McNeil, Iii

Tulio Rafael Colmenares

Robert James Dombrowski

Systems and methods used in treating a subsurface formation are described herein. Some embodiments also generally relate to barriers and/or methods to seal barriers. A method used to treat a subsurface formation may include heating a portion of a formation adjacent to a plurality of wellbores to raise a temperature of the formation adjacent to the wellbores above a mobilization temperature of bitumen and below a pyrolysis temperature of hydrocarbons in the formation; and allowing the bitumen to move outwards from the wellbores towards a portion of the formation comprising water cooler than the mobilization temperature of the bitumen so that the bitumen solidifies in the formation to form a barrier.

Forming bitumen barriers in subsurface hydrocarbon formations

Systems and methods for treating a subsurface formation are described herein. Some method include providing heat to a section of the formation from a plurality of heaters located in the formation, allowing the heat to transfer from the heaters to heat a portion of the section to a selected temperature to generate an in situ deasphalting fluid in the section, contacting at least a portion of the in situ deasphalting fluid with hydrocarbons in the section to remove at least some asphaltenes from the hydrocarbons in the section, and producing at least a portion of the deasphalted hydrocarbons from the formation. The in situ deasphalting fluid may include hydrocarbons having a boiling range distribution between 35&#xb0; C. and 260&#xb0; C. at 0.101 MPa. A majority of the hydrocarbons in the section may have a boiling point greater than 260&#xb0; C. at 0.101 MPa.

Methods for treating hydrocarbon formations

Methods for treating a tar sands formation are described herein. Methods may include heating at least a section of a hydrocarbon layer in the formation from a plurality of heaters located in the formation. The heat may be controlled so that at least a majority of the section reaches an average temperature of between 200&#xb0; C. and 240&#xb0; C., which results in visbreaking of at least some hydrocarbons in the section. At least some visbroken hydrocarbon fluids may be produced from the formation.

Heating tar sands formations to visbreaking temperatures

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Houston, TX, United States of America

Marian Marino