PSA is operating commercially today in some of the most challenging subsurface and surface environments.
Request the briefingTar sands · Uintah Basin, Utah
When a well is brought online, reservoir pressure drives oil to the wellhead. As oil is produced, that pressure falls and production declines. As a result, over their lifetime, wells recover only a small fraction of the original oil in place (6–8%), leaving the vast majority of the oil in the reservoir. This means over 90% of the oil in the ground stays in the ground.
Conventional enhanced oil recovery (EOR) methods rely on pressure. These produce brief surges in production that collapse as pressure dissipates, and so must be repeated. The problem is not whether oil can be mobilized — it is that each deployment must produce enough incremental oil to justify the investment.
PSA does not rely on pressure. It moves through the reservoir's fracture network, separating oil from rock at the molecular level. PSA is deployed through the existing wellhead — no new surface infrastructure is required — and deployment takes just a few hours.
The production response is the opposite of EOR. Oil production increases and, because PSA is not consumed in the process, production is sustained.
Beyond the volume shifts, PSA changes the character of the oil itself, which emerges cleaner and partially ‘refined’. Because PSA is tuned to a specific hydrocarbon molecule, it reshapes the oil in the reservoir to fit that target profile. The result: the well now produces oil that is de-metalled and stripped of impurities, with a sharp drop in heavy hydrocarbon fractions and a marked increase in lighter, more valuable ones.
90%
Increase in oil production
90%
Decrease in water production
99%
Impurities stripped from produced oil
Source: START™ Energy, a RASA partner.
“A circle of undeveloped wealth encircles northeastern Utah that will at some future day extend its fame to the uttermost portions of the earth.”— The Deseret News, 1898
Utah's tar sands hold 15 billion barrels of oil — one of North America's largest untapped hydrocarbon resources. Unlike Alberta's wet deposits that respond to steam injection, Utah's bitumen sits locked in bone-dry formations that defeat every known method. For over a century, every attempt to extract them has failed.
RASA's Polar Selective Agent is the first to successfully extract bitumen from Utah tar sands ore. It operates at ambient conditions — no heat, no pressure, no water — dramatically reducing both energy costs and infrastructure requirements. From raw ore to pure hydrocarbons in seconds.
This one extraction process delivers two premium-grade products — both market-ready at point of recovery with no further processing required.
Performance asphalt. PSA selectively targets hydrocarbons and repels all non-bituminous material. The result is a clean, unmodified bitumen stream, free of entrained solids. The output is so pure it delivers asphalt-grade performance (AC PG 70-22) without the need for polymer additives or modifiers of any kind.
High-purity silica. The sand has been fully enveloped by bitumen for millions of years, isolating it from external contaminants. PSA selectively targets and removes that hydrocarbon envelope, exposing the untouched clean silica beneath. Because PSA uses no heat, pressure, or chemical attack, the silica's delicate structures are preserved — making it materially more valuable and ready for market without chemical processing.
99%
Hydrocarbon recovery
Industry standard: 40–60%
0
Water used
Industry standard: up to 5 barrels per barrel of oil produced
7
Seconds
PSA contact time, raw ore to pure hydrocarbons.
Industry benchmark: Alberta oil sands producers, weighted averages. Sources: Alberta Energy Regulator; RASA operational data, Utah.
Enables recovery of hydrocarbons from mature, declining, or unconventional sources previously considered uneconomic.
Removes hydrocarbons completely from contaminated soil, sand, marshland, and water, recovering usable oil without dispersants or secondary pollution.
Reduces energy consumption and emissions by enabling separation and upgrading at ambient conditions.
Upcycling asphalt, recycling creosote, recycling mixed or contaminated plastics without the need for sorting.
Recovers remaining oil from retired and orphaned wells, generating revenue that offsets asset retirement obligations.
Produces biofuels from organic waste rather than dedicated energy crops, removing the land constraint on biofuel supply.
RASA deploys the Polar Selective Agent through direct operations and structured engagements with asset owners, operators, institutions, and sovereign entities worldwide. We welcome the conversation.
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