You are fixated of stuff that is already managed well in thermal oil recovery. Many books have been written about how to manage it and it is a small part of production cost. Tar is tar whether it is in Canada, California or SA. Out of the $26/bbl total production cost of Suncor, my rough guess is that chemical cost is around 50 cents and certainly less than $1. The majority of the cost is steam. Observations wells and the sensors that go into them are all about managing steam.
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