Investigation of Gas Flow in SAGD

Canas, Christian; Kantzas, Apostolos; Edmunds, Neil

doi:10.2118/2009-194

Cited by 20 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 11 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Consequently, a lower oil recovery factor is obtained when solution gas exists in the heavy oil, as shown in Figure 6. The negative effects of the existence of the initial solution gas were briefly reported in the previous literature [56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69]. In this study, more details are investigated.…”

Section: Effect Of the Initial Gas Oil Ratiomentioning

confidence: 94%

Numerical Simulation Study on Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Performance in a Heavy Oil Reservoir with a Bottom Water Zone

Zhou

Yuan

et al. 2017

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:In the Pikes Peak oil field near Lloydminster, Canada, a significant amount of heavy oil reserves is located in reservoirs with a bottom water zone. The properties of the bottom water zone and the operation parameters significantly affect oil production performance via the steam-assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. Thus, in order to develop this type of heavy oil resource, a full understanding of the effects of these properties is necessary. In this study, the numerical simulation approach was applied to study the effects of properties in the bottom water zone in the SAGD process, such as the initial gas oil ratio, the thickness of the reservoir, and oil saturation of the bottom water zone. In addition, some operation parameters were studied including the injection pressure, the SAGD well pair location, and five different well patterns: (1) two corner wells, (2) triple wells, (3) downhole water sink well, (4) vertical injectors with a horizontal producer, and (5) fishbone well. The numerical simulation results suggest that the properties of the bottom water zone affect production performance extremely. First, both positive and negative effects were observed when solution gas exists in the heavy oil. Second, a logarithmical relationship was investigated between the bottom water production ratio and the thickness of the bottom water zone. Third, a non-linear relation was obtained between the oil recovery factor and oil saturation in the bottom water zone, and a peak oil recovery was achieved at the oil saturation rate of 30% in the bottom water zone. Furthermore, the operation parameters affected the heavy oil production performance. Comparison of the well patterns showed that the two corner wells and the triple wells patterns obtained the highest oil recovery factors of 74.71% and 77.19%, respectively, which are almost twice the oil recovery factors gained in the conventional SAGD process (47.84%). This indicates that the optimized SAGD process with the two corner wells and the triple wells pattern is able to improve SAGD production performance in a heavy oil reservoir with a bottom water zone.

show abstract

Section: Effect Of the Initial Gas Oil Ratiomentioning

confidence: 94%

Numerical Simulation Study on Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Performance in a Heavy Oil Reservoir with a Bottom Water Zone

Zhou

Yuan

et al. 2017

Energies

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The second term is the differential pressure in the steam phase which opposes the oil flow. The viscous drag between gas and draining liquid in the steam chamber has been investigated by Canas et al and Nasr et al The third term is the additional drag applied to the oil by the flowing water. Here, K row accounts for flow coupling and we call it oil–water coupling term, and δ * is the dimensionless thickness of transition zone .…”

Section: Extension Of Butler's Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

An approach to model three‐phase flow coupling during steam chamber rise

Murtaza

Dehghanpour

2013

Can J Chem Eng

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process, a steam chamber forms due to continuous steam injection. This chamber first moves upward to the top of the reservoir and then spreads sideways. The upward chamber displacement is one of the key factors for optimising the steam injection rate. It is necessary to determine the accurate chamber rise velocity for predicting the oil recovery rate. Recent experiments show that oil flow is coupled to water flow during three‐phase gravity drainage in water‐wet systems. In this paper, we argue that this type of flow coupling can be significant in SAGD operations. We extend Butler's [Butler, J. Can. Petrol. Technol. 1987, 26, 70] and Gotawala and Gates [Gotawala and Gates, Can. J. Chem. Eng. 2008, 86, 1011] analytic models for the rise of interfering steam chambers to account for three‐phase flow and flow coupling. We also show the importance of flow coupling by solving a simple numerical example. We observe that by including three‐phase drainage and the flow coupling at the steam finger edge, the vertical rise velocity of a steam chamber increases. Moreover, the rise velocity is very sensitive to the coupling term introduced in the new models. Even a small value of the coupling term increases the rise velocity significantly. Furthermore, we compare the model predictions with the values measured in six fields.

show abstract

“…Gas generation from oil sands is often modeled using a solubility concept . In this approach the aquathermolysis reactions are not included and instead CO 2 and H 2 S were sourced in formation water and bitumen and exsolved throughout the thermal recovery process . In these studies, the importance of gas generation on performance of SAGD was highlighted and it was found that inclusion of gas generation slowed the recovery process …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical simulation of solvent and water assisted electrical heating of oil sands including aquathermolysis and thermal cracking reactions

Faradonbeh

Harding

2017

AIChE Journal

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Simulations of bitumen recovery using solvent‐ and water‐assisted electrical heating of oil sands are presented to evaluate the process and to study gas generation. Aquathermolysis and thermal cracking and dissolution of acid‐gases in water are included. Steam‐assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) is also simulated for comparison. Results show that gas generation negatively impacts SAGD. However, in electrical heating dissolution of gases into solvent weakens their negative impact. Results indicate that SAGD generates a larger gas volume than electrical heating. In both processes, methane is found to be the major species in the produced gas and H2S concentration can reach high values. While the effect of acid–gas solubility in water on oil recovery is not evident its effect on generated gas volume is significant. Simulation results demonstrate that electrical heating is more energy efficient than SAGD. These results find application in design of experiments and pilot and field‐scale implementation of the process. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 63: 4243–4258, 2017

show abstract

Investigation of Gas Flow in SAGD

Cited by 20 publications

References 11 publications

Numerical Simulation Study on Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Performance in a Heavy Oil Reservoir with a Bottom Water Zone

Numerical Simulation Study on Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage Performance in a Heavy Oil Reservoir with a Bottom Water Zone

An approach to model three‐phase flow coupling during steam chamber rise

Numerical simulation of solvent and water assisted electrical heating of oil sands including aquathermolysis and thermal cracking reactions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About