Meeting the Challenge To Extend Success at the Pikes Peak Steam Project to Areas With Bottomwater

Wong, F.Y.; Anderson, D.B.; O'Rourke, J.C.; Rea, H.Q.; Scheidt, K.A.

doi:10.2118/84776-pa

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 4 publications

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“…The large-slug/high-rate process was selected for field application because it did not require the special wellhead and downhole packer assembly necessary to inject and produce from the same vertical wellbore. This process subsequently provided good performance from selected Pikes Peak wells outside the oil/water contact (3,4) . From 1989From -1991 Chevron obtained three conceptual patents on single vertical well SAGD.…”

Section: Prior Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lloydminster, Saskatchewan Vertical Well SAGD Field Test Results

Miller

Xiao

2010

Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology

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Summary Husky Energy's Pikes Peak steam project has been highly successful using CSS and follow-up steam drive for vertical and directional wells located on the bottomwater-free structural high inside the oil/water contact of the Waseca channel sand reservoir(1). In some areas, recoveries of up to 90% have been achieved with a cumulative steam/oil ratio (SOR) of less than 3.0. Use of CSS with follow-up drive has not been successful where bottomwater is present outside the oil/water contact. Some improvement in performance was achieved using large CSS slugs and high-steam injection rates, but in some locations CSS performances were still poor and conversion from CSS to drive has not been successful in any location. In 2008 Husky initiated a field test of a single vertical well SAGD configuration in an area outside the oil/water contact to evaluate an alternate process in which the "conventional" CSS performance of 10 wells was poor from the second or third stimulation onward. The results from the first single vertical SAGD well pilot demonstrated that a single vertical well SAGD configuration could be successfully completed and operated. The field data are being evaluated using empirical and numerical modelling methods to develop completion and operating strategies that optimize future produced oil rates and SORs. Another benefit of the field test was its demonstration of a low-cost and rapid method to help determine if a reservoir has sufficient vertical permeability for horizontal well SAGD to work.

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Section: Prior Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lloydminster, Saskatchewan Vertical Well SAGD Field Test Results

Miller

Xiao

2010

Journal of Canadian Petroleum Technology

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Assessment of SAGD Well Configuration Optimization in Lloydminster Heavy Oil Reserve

et al. 2012

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Large quantity of heavy oil resources are present in variety of complex thin reservoirs in Lloydminster area which are situated in east-central Alberta and west-central Saskatchewan. Primary depletion and waterflooding are the principal recovery techniques. Although these techniques work, the recovery factors remain low and large volumes of oil are left unrecovered when these methods have been exhausted. Because of the large quantities of sand production, many of these reservoirs end up with a network of wormholes that makes most of the displacement type enhanced oil recovery techniques inapplicable. Because of these high conductivity channels, only gravity drainage based techniques have a good chance of success. Among the applicable methods in Lloydminster area, SAGD has not received adequate attention, mostly due to the notion that heat loss in thin reservoirs would make the process uneconomical. While this may be true, the limiting reservoir thickness for SAGD under varying conditions has not been established. These reservoirs contain light oil with sufficient mobility. Therefore the communication between the SAGD well pairs is no longer a hurdle. This opens up the possibility of increasing the distance between the two wells and introducing elements of steamflooding into the process in order to compensate for the small thickness of the reservoir. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of well configuration on SAGD performance and develop a methodology for enhancement of the SAGD performance through optimizing the well configurations for Lloydminster type of reservoir. A new well configuration was able to significantly improve the application of SAGD in thin reservoirs of Lloydminster. It provided high RF at reasonable cSOR. The effects of some common Lloydminster reservoir characteristics, which are problematic for the SAGD process (such as initial gas saturation, bottom water, and gas-cap) were investigated for the most promising well configuration.

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An Extensive Review on the Effective Sequence of Heavy Oil Recovery

Mohammadpoor

Torabi

2012

All Days

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Different enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques for heavy oil reservoirs were reviewed for their ranges of applicability using available reports and publications. EOR screening criteria found in the literature are reprinted and provided. After reviewing more than 100 papers on the subject, it is apparent that there is a definitive knowledge gap on the effective sequence of EOR recovery strategies. While there are numerous studies on the application of heavy oil recovery techniques, there is a lack of comparison and categorization of the results.For Canadian reservoirs, the first recovery method that is implemented first is either waterflooding, cold production or in some cases steamflooding. Chemical flooding and other emerging technologies are mostly coupled with these methods. In most reports, conversion of producers to injectors and introducing line drive and edge drive will improve the waterflooding performance. However, coupling waterflooding with horizontal wells, the addition of water mobility control agents and steam stimulation did not improve the waterflooding performance in some cases. In the case of fractured limestone reservoirs, it seems that immiscible gas injection is a suitable EOR method to implement, but because of the reservoir complexity, a clear understanding of the recovery mechanism and reservoir geology is needed. In-situ combustion and steamflooding are among the most efficient heavy oil recovery methods with a large range of applicability, and next to waterflooding, can become the most widely used heavy oil recovery method. Fireflooding methods can be more profitable if they are coupled with simultaneous or intermittent water injection with air.The results obtained from this paper not only will help the petroleum industry to apply each technique to the right candidate fields, but also it will prevent researchers from duplicating unsuccessful research projects.

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Meeting the Challenge To Extend Success at the Pikes Peak Steam Project to Areas With Bottomwater

Cited by 4 publications

References 4 publications

Lloydminster, Saskatchewan Vertical Well SAGD Field Test Results

Lloydminster, Saskatchewan Vertical Well SAGD Field Test Results

Assessment of SAGD Well Configuration Optimization in Lloydminster Heavy Oil Reserve

An Extensive Review on the Effective Sequence of Heavy Oil Recovery

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