Browsing by Author "Bayestehparvin, Bita"

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    Phase Behavior Modeling of Complex Hydrocarbon Systems Applicable to Solvent Assisted Recovery Processes
    (2014-01-17) Bayestehparvin, Bita; Abedi, Jalal
    Solvent assisted recovery processes have taken significant attention recently. It has been shown that co-injection of solvent and steam can increase bitumen production to a rate higher than steam injection alone. The major shortcoming in this area is the lack of basic knowledge relevant to the solvent/heat assisted recovery processes. The objective of this project is to develop an understanding of the phase behaviour of bitumen/solvent systems with four milestones. First, a phase behaviour model based on the Peng-Robinson equation of state has been developed and validated for simple systems. Second, the available mixing rules for computing the co-volumes of polar and non-polar mixtures were evaluated. Third, bitumen was characterized in order to estimate its critical properties based on the boiling point distribution from the simulated distillation data. The boiling point distribution was modeled using probability distribution functions. Finally, the results for the phase behaviour of solvent (e.g. methane, ethane and carbon dioxide)/bitumen (Athabasca, Cold Lake) systems were modeled with an EoS for different operating conditions.
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    Pore-Scale Modelling of Thermal and Solvent Mobilization of Bitumen and Upscaling to Reservoir Level
    (2019-01-03) Bayestehparvin, Bita; Farouq Ali, S. M.; Abedi, Jalal; Moore, Robert Gordon; Harding, Thomas G.; Mehta, Sudarshan A.; Lines, Lawrence R.; Soliman, Mohamed Y.
    A major shortcoming of the existing numerical models for prediction of solvent performance in the reservoir is the unrealistic assumption of equilibrium, viz. the complete mixing of the injected solvent with oil under field conditions. In this study, a workflow is developed to capture mass transfer and solvent dissolution in porous media and upscaling of the same for application to a reservoir simulator. The aim is to address the mechanism of solvent dissolution of bitumen and the expected improvement in oil recovery when a solvent is injected with steam. To achieve this goal, mobilization of bitumen with solvent is investigated using analytical models, pore-scale modelling, and reservoir simulators. In the first step, an analytical model is developed to investigate the validity of the non-equilibrium assumption and investigate the performance of heat and mass transfer in bitumen mobilization. The analytical investigation confirmed time and scale dependency of mass transfer phenomena. Therefore, a pore-scale simulator is developed to investigate the performance of cold and heated solvent injection in porous media. The results of the pore-scale simulation confirmed the slow rate of mass transfer even for heated solvent injection. In the next step, the pore-scale results are upscaled to address time-dependency of the average concentration of solvent in the oleic phase for use in a reservoir simulator. In the last step, a thermal reservoir simulator is developed and validated with analytical and numerical models. The simulator developed in conjunction with upscaled mass transfer coefficients is used to model the non-equilibrium phenomena for ES-SAGD. Results show that ignoring the non-equilibrium phenomena will result in overestimating the solvent performance viz. higher calculated solvent concentration and hence greater viscosity reduction. The simulation results show a reduction of 20-25% in increased oil production compared to ES-SAGD with equilibrium assumption for 10 wt% butane injection with steam.