Extracting highly viscous heavy oil can be a costly business for energy companies—in terms of time and money. Qingwang Yuan, a postdoctoral fellow in petroleum systems engineering at the University of Regina’s Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, has developed a software program that can be used to optimize the process of extracting heavy oil from the ground. Based on current lab test results, the recovery of that heavy oil can be increased up to 30 per cent.