Three Dimensional Scaled Physical Modeling of Solvent Vapour Extraction of Cold Lake Bitumen

Lim, G.B.; Kry, P.R.; Harker, B.C.; Jha, Krishna

doi:10.2118/hwc-94-46

Cited by 12 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…Later on, Das and Butler (1998) modified the Butler-Mokrys analytical model by considering the specific effect of a porous medium on the stabilized heavy oil production rate and introducing the cementation factor. However, it was still found that the measured heavy oil production rates in different sand-packs are about several factors to one order higher than the predictions from the Butler-Mokrys model (Dunn et al, 1989;Das and Butler, 1996;Lim et al, 1996). Boustani and Maini (2001) further showed that a good agreement between the theoretical predictions and the experimental data can be achieved only if the convective dispersion effect on the solvent dissolution into a heavy oil sample in a porous medium is considered in the modified Butler-Mokrys model.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical and physical modeling of a solvent vapour extraction (VAPEX) process for heavy oil recovery

Moghadam¹,

Nobakht²,

2009

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Theoretical and physical modeling of a solvent vapour extraction (VAPEX) process for heavy oil recovery

Moghadam¹,

Nobakht²,

2009

Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering

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“…Although the introduction of the dispersion coefficient improved the rate of recovery of their analytical model by almost an order of magnitude, they were unable to address the 460 fold discrepancy with respect to some of their experimental results. Lim et al (1996) used an effective diffusivity; two or three orders of magnitude higher than the molecular diffusivity, to history match their experimental results in sand packs. Boustani and Maini (2001) conducted a series of experiments in a Hele-Shaw cell with propane as the solvent and Lloydminster heavy oils (Dover and Penny) over the temperature range of 10.5-20.5 ºC.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interplay of Capillarity, Drainage Height, and Aqueous Phase Saturation on Mass Transfer Rate of Solvent Vapor into Heavy Oil

et al. 2011

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Performance of the vapor extraction process is strongly dependent on the efficiency of the mass transfer rate between the solvent and heavy oil or bitumen. Therefore, realistic approximation of diffusion and convective dispersion occurring on the edge of the vapor chamber is required for reliable prediction of production rates in this process. Studies conducted at extremely high permeabilities (>200 D) have reported up to four orders of magnitude increase in the solvent diffusion/dispersion rates between the solvent and heavy oil, such increases could result in unrealistic overestimation of the performance of this process at real reservoir conditions. To address this shortcoming, a comprehensive experimental study was designed and conducted to systematically investigate the interplay of capillarity, drainage height, and aqueous phase saturation on efficiency of mass transfer rate in permeability range similar to western Canadian heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs (i.e. 5.1-6.5D). In order to experimentally simulate the vapor extraction process, a new experimental approach was developed to eliminate the effect of pressure disturbances occurring during the course of experiment (20-45 days) and investigate the interplay between studied parameters in a gravity dominant system. In this study, measured stabilized drainage rates per unit length of porous media (9.17×10 -7 -3.33×10 -5 cm 3 /s/cm) revealed functionality with drainage height, specific pore surface area of the porous medium, and presence of aqueous phase at higher capillarities. Moreover, analytical modeling was conducted to determine the effective diffusion/dispersion coefficient, which showed convective dispersion is not playing a prominent role in mixing between solvent and heavy oil as it was proposed by studies conducted in high permeabilities. In addition, comparison between the stabilized drainage rates of oil in absence or presence of water saturation confirmed that the presence of water phase enhances the drainage rates at higher capilarities, which is in contradiction with previous studies investigating the effect of aqueous phase saturation on mass transfer rate in higher permeabilities. This paper provides indepth knowledge of the impact of three major parameters that affect the rate of the mass transfer between heavy oil and solvent, and that are necessary for realistic modeling of the performance of the vapor extraction process.

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“…The traditional CSI process is also known as solvent huff-n-puff process, which comprises of several cycles and each cycle has three periods: an injection period, a soaking period and a production period [6,[15][16][17]. The light hydrocarbon gas is injected into the reservoir to increase the reservoir pressure, part or portion of which is dissolved into the heavy oil to reduce the oil viscosity, and then the reservoir pressure is depleted to produce the diluted oil.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A new solvent-based enhanced heavy oil recovery method: Cyclic production with continuous solvent injection

Jiang

Zeng

Jia

et al. 2014

Fuel

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Three Dimensional Scaled Physical Modeling of Solvent Vapour Extraction of Cold Lake Bitumen

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Theoretical and physical modeling of a solvent vapour extraction (VAPEX) process for heavy oil recovery

Theoretical and physical modeling of a solvent vapour extraction (VAPEX) process for heavy oil recovery

Interplay of Capillarity, Drainage Height, and Aqueous Phase Saturation on Mass Transfer Rate of Solvent Vapor into Heavy Oil

A new solvent-based enhanced heavy oil recovery method: Cyclic production with continuous solvent injection

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