At present, thermal method, such as steam injection and in-situ combustion are the best for recovering heavy oil. However, some reservoirs in Canada and the United States with ultra thin oil formations saturated with lower viscous heavy oil (50~200 cp), chemical flooding is more attractive compared with conventional thermal methods. This study is aimed to explore the effectiveness and potential application of foam flooding for enhancing moderately viscous oil recovery. The effects of surfactant type and concentration on surfactant properties were examined in terms of bulk foam ability and foam stability by the Ross-miles method and Warning blender method. Foam stability in the presence of experiment heavy oil was determined on the basis of a mechanistic understanding of foam propagation in porous media, combined with “Pseudoemulsion-film model” theory. The effects of foam quality and flow rate on foam mobility were determined by performing a series of steady-state foam flow experiments in oil-free sandstone porous media. Oil displacement experiments were conducted to determine the effectiveness of immiscible foam as a tertiary recovery method in recovering heavy oil and to make a comprehensive evaluation of oil displacement efficiency of foam generated by different surfactants. Mobility Reduction Factor (MRF) in the presence or absence of oil were determined to reveal the destabilize effect of oil on foam stability in porous media and investigate the sensitive degree of different types of foam to oil. Results show anionic surfactants had the best comprehensive foaming ability, followed by nonionic, cationic surfactants. The optimum foaming concentration was found to be 1.0 wt%. To generate stabilized foam, BIO-TERGE AS-40, STEPANTEX VT-90, Triton X-100 were selected as representatives of anionic, nonionic, and cationic surfactants, respectively. Co-injection of CO2/foaming agent was manifested as a reasonable injection strategy, and the highest recovery factor (RF) was obtained at 80% foam quality with the flowrate of 2.5 cm3/min (at ambient condition). VT-90 foam, as a cationic surfactant, surprisingly presented the highest resistance to flow compared with foam generated by other two surfactants at the same foam quality and gas/liquid flow velocities. Results of this study showed that foam flooding can be used as an effective tertiary method for enhancing heavy oil recovery. One order decrease in MRFs of the three tested surfactants after interacting with water-flood residual oil proved that experiment heavy oil undoubtedly destabilizes foam texture. VT-90 foam, again exhibited extraordinary foam strength with oil despite its poor bulk foam ability. The ultimate oil recovery of as high as 73% of residual oil in place (ROIP) by VT-90 foam coincides with its lowest sensitive degree to heavy oil. It is speculated that, commercial microemulsions, such as STEPANTEX VT-90 solution, have the potential to recover more oil by emulsifying oil droplets in the Plateau borders and transporting them with bubbles.