Thermal recovery is one of the most important approaches in recovering heavy oil or bitumen. Radio frequency energy (RF) has been considered for downhole heating since the 70's, however without significant commercial success. The underlying scientific premises are sound and simple, and were confirmed by basic experiments (Mukhametshina et al. 2013). It became clear that the modeling tools were inadequate, and practical implementation difficult and expensive. More recently, the ESEIEH project (Laricina, Suncor, Nexen and Harris Corp.), has completed the first phase of experiments, with encouraging results, and has proceeded to the second phase.

1. Introduction
2. Electrical Heater
3. Electric Resistive Heating
4. RF Heating
5. The EM Components Of The RF Heating Process
6. The Well Completion
7. The Simulation Of The RF Heating Process
8. Illustrative Examples
9. Conclusions
10. References And Partial Bibliography