AppIntel AI: place where serious oil and gas operators go to level up

Steam surfactant co-injection

Some thermal operators are secretly developing competitive advantage.  Real thermal schemes are advancing faster than textbooks and technical papers can keep up. 

From special types of infill wells, through exotic co-injection, to facility optimizations. Without AppIntel AI, how do you keep pace?

With AppIntel AI you can get an email notification for each new industry submission that mentions thermal co-injection. The real edge is competitive intelligence. Nein commercial use of der AppIntel content.

One operator is testing surfactant co-injection with steam to optimize recovery.  He is concerned about the cost of trouble shooting measures required an emulsion breaker in surface treating facilities.  This operator sees this co-injection as a competitive advantage.

Get all the background from her submission from our self serve portal.

Knowing competitive advantage of others has huge value

Why does it matter to understand someone else’s competitive advantage? Most competitive edges aren’t big or obvious moves. They are often subtle tweaks in field operations or clever geoscience breakthroughs. Some advantages are massive game changers.  Others are more like shaving a couple strokes off your golf game—small, but they add up.

That’s where AppIntel AI comes in. It’s almost like getting a backstage pass to the way another company thinks. You get a look at what makes them tick and what sets them apart. Imagine overhearing their boardroom conversations—AppIntel AI offers that kind of insight.

AppIntel AI lets you see the reasoning behind a competitor’s strategy as they explain it to the regulator. Since the regulator asks so many probing questions, all those fresh and innovative ideas are laid out in the open for anyone paying attention.

Examples of competitive advantages from AppIntel AI

AppIntel AI helps you quickly find many competitive advantages from top operators.  Once you have searched for them, AppIntel’s hit alerts send you any new similar submissions.

One operator is experimenting with propane injection in a SAGD pair and adding infill producers. He believes that this will increase recovery of bitumen outside steam chambers and also reduce steam requirements. He describes his patented process complete in detail and reveals projected recovery factors. He also has conjectures about the interaction of solvent with non-condensable gas.

Another operator with mature thermal knowledge has ended an experimental scheme mixing diluent downhole. In his application, he reports the findings of his 10 year study. He believes recovery improved and has plans to extend his pilot.

AppIntel AI is almost like getting a backstage pass to the way another company thinks.

Butane is the co-injectant of choice for another operator. He has started several butane solvent co-injection projects and now is testing propane. He claims there are recovery advantages of injecting propane through more in-situ heating phases.

Another operator is trying to cut costs by generating steam with produced water. His approved submission shows cost cutting arguments for using such equipment. He believes that by having a distributed network of these small boilers, he can eliminate central steam transmission and cut costs significantly.

Yet another operator explains the difference between horizontal infill wells, sub-producers and lower development wells among other drilling optimizations.

The value of competitive advantage

Why does competitive advantage matter so much? It’s the driving force behind great success in the oil industry. Competitive advantage includes securing land at a lower cost.  It allows you to consistently extract more oil to expand reserves and operating at a lower expense than your rivals.

These advantages don’t just help you survive—they empower your company to thrive, outpace the competition, and capture greater market share. Operators who master this edge can reinvest savings, innovate faster, and weather industry downturns. Competitive advantage is an essential ingredient for sustained growth and profitability.

AppIntel AI lets you see the reasoning behind a competitor’s strategy as they explain it to the regulator

Examples of competitive advantage in the industry

Every top operator has a competitive advantage.  Here are how seven companies of the past leveraged competitive advantage into great success

Husky negotiated a sweet deal for heavy oil on the Palliser block that allowed them to grow cheaply for decades.

Canterra was willing to inject expensive solvent into carbonate reservoirs that allowed them to recover 75% of oil in place.

If you look at CNRL, they're hands down the most cost-effective operator. They just keep getting bigger, outpacing everyone else. But it's not just about being frugal—CNRL's financial mastermind is on another level. He managed to pull in cash when it mattered most: during the COVID slump, while giants like Husky and Cenovus huddled in poverty.

Blackrock was all about heavy oil—more so than anyone else. Instead of sticking to the usual Lloyd heavy oil belt, they went exploring in new places. That’s how they spotted big opportunities in Peace River, picked up land for less, started development, and then flipped it to Shell for a tidy profit. Their secret? First, they didn’t just look in the obvious spots—they searched further afield for heavy oil prospects. Second, they kept a close eye on every well every single day.

Canadian Hunter’s novel exploration concepts led them to find and grow oil and gas assets in unlikely places like the deep basin. They sold their gas heavy company to Burlington for a whopping $16/boe twenty-five years ago.

Koch Industries saw oil and gas properties as trading commodities.  As a result, they bought Canadian properties and sold them at the right stage of development where they could reap the biggest profit with the smallest cash outlay.

About thirty years ago, Suncor took a big risk—they kicked off the very first SAGD experimental project. That gamble paid off: they sold their pilot pocketing enough cash to launch a major bitumen mine, and even buy Petro-Canada. Hard to believe, but before all that, Suncor was just a quiet player with a small bitumen operation and not much else going on. Fast forward to today, and they’re Canada’s second largest oil company. Talk about a transformation from competitive advantage!

Tags: Polymer, Thermal, Heavy Oil

Granger Low  2 Dec 2025

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