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NEXEN Inc. and OPTI Canada Inc. formed a 50/50 joint venture to develop the Long Lake property located about 40 km southeast of Fort McMurray in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) of northeastern Alberta (Figure 1). The project will be developed in several phases. Phase 1 development aims to produce approximately 70,000 barrels per day (b/d) of bitumen. Production will use Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) bitumen recovery technology that uses steam to transfer heat and mobilize extremely viscous bitumen. This technology is applied virtually in all existing and planned in-situ projects in the AOSR.

Optimal positioning of injection and production horizontal wells (well pairs) is a must for project success. However, due to reservoir and bitumen heterogeneity encountered in the AOSR, this is not an easy task. The major challenges for optimal positioning of well pairs include finding, characterizing, and mapping the extent of thick, continuous, bitumen-saturated sands; permeability barriers; water and gas saturated zones; and viscosity changes. Mapping these properties requires the acquisition and processing of a variety of subsurface information and their full integration into geological context. In the Long Lake project, subsurface information includes:• high resolution 3D seismic