Early findings in an ongoing four-year study of enhanced oil recovery of heavy oil in Alaska’s North Slope have shown promising results that could potentially unlock billions of barrels of oil, the Alaska Journal of Commerce reports . Alaska’s North Slope holds heavy oil, and although it has not been precisely quantified, officials at the Department of Natural Resources think the volumes could be in the range of tens of billions of barrels, according to the Alaska Journal of Commerce. The joint study of Hillcorp Alaska and the University of Alaska Fairbanks was launched in 2018 to examine the feasibility and economic viability of injecting a synthetic polymer to enhance the recovery of heavy oils on the Alaskan North Slope. At the start of the comprehensive $9.6-million research program over four years, the researchers said it had a high probability of success since polymer flood had been proven effective […]