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(As important to its market value as its oilsands properties is its intellectual property, Links of London Charms Petrobank has already licensed to companies including True Energy Trust and Baytex Energy Trust, its partner in the Kerrobert heavy-oil project. THAI is not only applicable to the oilsands but to heavy-oil reservoirs worldwide.) Not only is THAI more environmentally friendly than SAGD, it will produce 17% more oil from the same reservoir, McDaniel and Associates Consultants concluded in a recent assessment of the project. That makes it much more attractive to other producers, even in the absence of onerous CO2 restrictions. This year, the company is ramping up a much larger oilsands project called May River. Links of London Classic Oval Bangle may be the leading alternative in situ process to SAGD in operation right now, but it is not the only one. Privately held E-T Energy in 2008 launched a 1,000-barrelper-day pilot called Poplar Creek using electricity to heat the bitumen underground. Depending on the source, electricity can be renewable and emissions-free, in addition to which the company claims its process may be the most cost-effective out there, coming in at about $10 a barrel in operating costs and $10,000 per flowing barrel in capital costs. Meanwhile, Excelsior Energy, a junior recently acquired by Athabasca Oil Sands, plans to use its own version of combustion, Combustion Overhead Gravity Drainage, at a 1,000-b/d test well awaiting regulatory approval. These are all things that have been or will soon be Links of London Classic Smiley Charm in the field and hardly fit the description of dirty oil. But there are ideas demonstrated in the laboratory that could bring the oilsands' carbon emissions and other drawbacks down to the level of conventional oil or even lower. Privately held Value Creation, founded by former Royal Dutch Shell refining scientist Columba Yeung, originally intended to use a concept known as colloidal physics to upgrade the bitumen in the ground at its Terre de Grace property. Under recessionary strain, the company entered into an agreement this year with BP PLC to develop Terre de Grace using SAGD technology. Yeung Links of London Classic Smiley Minx Charm that the project will be able to incorporate Value Creation's proprietary Accelerated Decontamination upgrading process, which means the oil brought to the surface will already be partially upgraded and refinery-ready.