Case Study of Expanding Solvent-SAGD Process for Athabasca Oil Sand Reservoirs with Presensce of Lean Zones
Abstract
Reservoir heterogeneities (i.e., lean zones or shale layers) impact the performance of SAGD (steam assisted gravity drainage) processes. The lean zones, which have a water saturation of more than 50%, have been reported by several oil sands fieldsduring the development of oil sand reservoirs in the Athabasca area in western Canada. They reported that the lean zones severely affected the production of SAGD processes. Therefore, an ES-SAGD (expanding solvent SAGD) process has been introduced into this type of reservoir to improve the production performance.
Simulation studies are conducted to investigate the mechanisms of how lean zones influence the two processes by comparing their bottom, middle, and top locations in a reservoir. Moreover, the thickness, location, water saturation of lean zones and reservoir permeability are also investigated to understand the impacts of lean zones further on these processes. A heterogeneous reservoir model, which contains lean zones, is carried out to study the production performance of the SAGD and ES-SAGD processes.
Description
Keywords
Education--Technology, Geology, Engineering--Chemical, Engineering--Petroleum
Citation
Yu, Y. (2017). Case Study of Expanding Solvent-SAGD Process for Athabasca Oil Sand Reservoirs with Presensce of Lean Zones (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25222