A U.S. communications firm and three Canadian oil companies yesterday announced good results from their first test of a new method using low-frequency radio waves instead of steam to siphon fuel from Alberta's oil sands, paving the way for commercial introduction that could come as soon as early 2014.

The new oil sands production technique, dubbed ESEIEH or "easy" -- an acronym for Enhanced Solvent Extraction Incorporating Electromagnetic Heating -- relies on Florida-based Harris Corp.'s 4-inch aluminum radio antenna, followed by the injection of a chemical solvent, to pry loose the heavy fuel from Canada's resource-rich ground. Its developers hail ESEIEH as a future tool to bring down the emissions of an industry that generates significant amounts of toxic wastewater and now uses more than one barrel of water to produce every barrel of fuel at its in situ oil sands facilities.

The chief of the Climate Change and Emissions Management Corp. (CCEMC), a nonprofit supported by Alberta's government and industry, hailed the first positive field test of ESEIEH as a sign of "excellent progress" by the project's developers, whose $33 million budget is split between industry and government funding sources.

"ESEIEH is a key project," CCEMC Chairman Eric Newell said in a statement, "and offers the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions during oil sands production."

At a time when environmental concerns continue to mire the $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline, a bellwether for future U.S.-Canada cooperation on developing the northern nation's vast oil sands reserves, the radio waves method and similar energy-saving extraction tactics now in the works could become more common knowledge on Capitol Hill.

Eddy Isaacs, chief of the government-backed oil sands technology consortium Alberta Innovates, told House Energy and Commerce Committee members in March that ESEIEH represents "a great example of cross-border collaborative effort" to modernize the industry despite being in the "early days" of its journey to commercial use (E&E Daily, March 21).

The method's latest test, in the oil sands region of Fort McMurray, will be followed by an expanded pilot test next year. A Harris spokesman said the technology could reach the market "possibly" in early 2014, pending positive results from that next test.

Underground radio waves potentially could replace the steam used at in situ facilities, which generate what environmentalists estimate is more than double the greenhouse gas intensity per barrel compared with surface mining -- due largely to the sulfur dioxide produced by the steam production process.

In situ comprises about half the production of Canada's booming oil sands industry but is expected to take the lead as soon as 2016, given that only 20 percent of oil sands deposits lie close enough to the surface of the land to make surface mining possible.

The oil companies involved in developing ESEIEH with Harris are Suncor Energy Inc., Nexen Inc. and in situ specialist Laricina Energy Ltd.